Convergence
by Avatar of Wurms
Summary: After crash-landing on Mira, Elma finds an amnesiac Cross alone in Starfall Basin. As they explore the planet together, Elma becomes more and more convinced that the mystery behind Cross is tied to that of the planet itself. Meanwhile, Cross struggles to understand why almost nothing seems familiar to her, and why what little she does remember doesn't match history.
1. Prologue: Singularity

Prolog: Singularity

It was dark. For that matter it was beyond dark. It was nothingness. No light, no sound, no touch, nothing at all. Or was it the other way? Was it that there was just so much of everything that she couldn't tell what anything was and it all kinda blurred together into a big blob of nothing like how if you mixed together all the colors of paint and got black? Cross wasn't sure.

Actually now that she thought about it Cross wasn't sure she actually had eyes. Or skin. Or any of that other fleshy stuff you use to sense things with. So maybe that was why there wasn't anything. Cross tried to raise her hand to her face to feel it. Nothing. No sensation of movement. No sensation of resistance either. Which lead to the obvious conclusion of not having an arm. Well that seems to support the "not having a body" idea. Cross pondered that and decided that she should probably be freaking out over that. But she wasn't. Huh. Odd. She thought about it some more, and thought about how she should probably be concerned by that. Ah! There it was! An inkling of concern. But not really. Maybe more like a remembrance of how concern felt. Still it was something. It felt more natural than not being worried about not having a body.

Then there was a voice. Sort of. Maybe more like the idea of a voice. Whatever it was it seemed friendly, though in a standoffish sort of way. "That is actually why you don't feel concern. Concern, fear, things like that, they come from biological process in the body. They are tied to pain. And since in most of the ways that matter you don't have a body right now you can't feel that. Only memories of the feelings remain."

Cross spoke, err wait no body so thought? Errr thought-spoke? Yeah that sounds good Cross decided. Thought-spoke. Cross thought-spoke back to the not-really-a-voice-thing. "Ummmm. Who are you exactly?"

"An old friend of the family I suppose" replied the not-really-a-voice-thing.

A friend of the family? Cross was pretty sure that that none of her family friends were not-really-a-voice-things. Though as she thought about it some more, Cross realized that she could not actually remember her family. Or anything really. Which was worrying.

"Worry about relations though, those are things much more closely tied to emotions. Those emotions are more tied to the soul than the body, so those remains to a greater degree."

Ahh. Well that explains that Cross thought. Hold up. "Wait. Are you reading my mind?" Cross thought-spoke to the not-really-a-voice-thing.

There was a ghost of a chuckle from the not-really-a-voice-thing. "In many ways here you are nothing but a mind. And here there is no real distinction between anything. Only those in which we believe."

Uhhhhhhh. Cross had no idea what the not-really-a-voice-thing was talking about. Thought-speaking about. Whatever.

"I do apologize. Things in places like this rarely make sense to people like you. It is the nature of your normal existence that you are unused to places like this. Should you have time, and I use that word in the loosest definition possible, to spend here you would grow to understand. But your time here is short. Already you begin to leave."

As the not-really-a-voice-thing said that Cross realized it was right. In some way she didn't have the words to describe it felt like she was starting to be elsewhere. It was weird. And probably would have been frightening. If ties to existence type stuff wasn't more of a fear of the body type thing than it was soul type thing?

"As good an explanation as any" answered the not-really-a-voice-thing. "I will do what I can to ensure you arrive safely, but there is little I can do. You're journey began in much less than ideal conditions, and I have little power here, less than even what power I have left where you began. And I have none where you go to now."

"Ahhh." Cross didn't really know what to say to that. Mostly cause very little made sense. Still, the not-really-a-voice-thing sure seemed friendly and had offered to help her. "That's ok. I'm glad you were here. Maybe we can meet again sometime?"

It felt like the not-really-a-voice-thing was smiling. "Maybe someday, though hopefully under better circumstances." The not-really-a-voice-thing paused before continuing. "When you arrive you will likely have no memories of this place. Memories are complicated things, being of both the soul and the body. Here where you have no body they are hard to form. And I fear that the nature of your journey will make memories of before now difficult to recover. Though in time I am confident you will. I wish you luck."

By the not-really-a-voice-thing had finished, Cross felt that she had almost finished the process of not being in the not-a-place that here was. As the last of her left, a nothingness came. But this was a proper nothingness. The nothingness of unconsciousness. Not the nothingness of the nothing-but-everything in the not-place she had left. It was relaxing. But the relaxation, the normality, the feeling of the familiar, it was tinged by the worrying sense that something other than the memories she had been warned would be gone was missing.

* * *

Author's Note

So, first things first: Welcome to the story! At current I plan on updating once every two weeks, maybe slowing down once I catch up to my backlog. Secondly, I don't currently have an editor other than my own rereading of things before I publish them, so if anyone wants to or has a suggestion of where to look for one that would be great.

Secondly: I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this prologue. I'm not sure that I've described "where" Cross is right now all that well, nor am I sure that the foreshadowing I'm trying to do here works. It's my least favorite section of everything I currently have written for this. So any thoughts on what works and what doesn't work here would be appreciated.


	2. Section 1: Decoherence - Chapter 1

Elma's day had been uniformly terrible so far, and it being early night had little time to get better. As she thought about it, the last couple days hadn't been much better. The mission was supposed to have been easy. Head out to Starfall Basin at the southwest end of Primordia and investigate some recently crashed lifepods from the Whale in hopes of finding survivors, or at worst, some spare mim parts, as grisly as that option was.

She and her teammates, Danny and Boris had taken out a buggy, to make the trip go by faster, but it had broken down about half way there to Shadow Rise Base Camp, necessitating that they proceed the rest of the way on foot and a call to the Reclaimer's to come retrieve the buggy, adding more work to one of the most overworked B.L.A.D.E. groups. When they finally got to Shadow Rise Base camp, they had then learned that they wouldn't be able to borrow the camps buggy, since a Prospector team had already taken it after _their_ buggy had broken down, necessitating that the three continue on foot. Finally, earlier today, at the entrance to Starfall Canyon(1), an Ictus had showed up and killed Danny and Boris before realizing that the tasty bite sized things weren't actually made of anything tasty and that the remaining one was poking it with sharp things so why should it care and leaving her all by herself. And now of course, as if Mira was intent on spiting her, it was raining.

Elma shook her head to clear her mind of the reminiscing. She had been with the military in some form almost her entire life. She had become used to losing comrades, had learned how to move on and keep working, even if she still mourned the loss of her friends inside. There was still work to be done.

Fortunately for her search, the vegetation in Starfall Canyon was relatively sparse, providing almost nowhere for a crashed lifepod to be hidden, so she didn't have to look very far. Even so, she had only found one so far, and it had been horribly broken. She hadn't dared to try and open it up. She didn't want to see what kind of damage its occupant had sustained.

Glancing up at the sky, Elma took a moment to curse the planet for the rain once again. Mira's sky at night was beautiful, even when the fairly common auras weren't present. It always helped her relax to look at it when things were going tough. There was nothing she could do about it though. She'd just have to finish searching the rest of the canyon tonight, camp out at Starfall Basin, and start her way back tomorrow morning.

As Elma crested the small rise to Starfall Basin, her heart leaped a little. There, sitting right in the middle of the basin, was an intact lifepod from the Whale. She allowed herself a small smile. "It looks like something good will… Oh no." The lifepod was open, and a figure was lying in a crumpled heap right outside. Had some of the internal lifepod circuitry been damaged, prompting a pre-emptive release? That could be damaging, even potentially fatal, to stored mim if the proper wake up protocols weren't followed. Even though she knew that it didn't matter, that any damage was already done, she still hurried to the person's, the young woman's she realized as she got closer, side.

Quickly crouching down to check the woman's breathing while laying down her flashlight at an angle that gave her some light of the collapsed woman and flinging her pack to the side, Elma did a cursory glance of her. Brown hair about neck length long, tied back in a ponytail with what looked like a handmade leather band. Probably average height, though it was hard to tell with the position the woman was in, and of average build, though with toned muscles, not that that particularly mattered for a mim. Dressed in standard White Whale work clothes.

Elma sighed in relief as she heard the woman take a shallow breath. "Good. She's alive. If she's breathing and there are no obvious signs of surface damage, than she can't be too badly damage. I just need to wake her up." Elma moved the young woman into a sitting position up against the side of the lifepod and gently shook her.

The young woman's eyes, teal, Elma noted, groggily fluttered open, before adopting a nervous look when catching site of her unfamiliar surroundings. "Hey there, you're all right." Elma assured the young woman in her most comforting voice, though she admitted to herself that it wasn't really one she had much practice using. Her job didn't normally call for it, though working with Lin had helped some whenever the young girl got stressed out.

The young woman slowly nodded, and looked around again, this time taking the time to examine her surroundings before letting out a questioning, "Uhhhh?"

Elma put on a reassuring smile. "Just take it nice and slow. You came out of that life pod," she said as she motioned to behind the woman, "in less than ideal circumstances. You're still probably groggy. My name is Elma, you wanna tell me yours?"

The young woman opened her mouth, then shut it and scrunched her brow in thought as worry flickered across her face.

"You don't even remember your name?" Elma asked her worriedly. She then muttered to herself, low enough that the apparently amnesiac woman hopefully couldn't hear her. "It must be the stasis hangover…it's been known to cause temporary disorientation. Sudden unexpected ejection from the lifepod _could_ intensify the effects." Returning to a more normal volume she continued. "You'll be fine. Just try and focus all right? It should come back to you.

The woman nodded, and scrunched her brow again. Elma was starting to worry that the woman HAD permanently forgotten her name when she nodded, smiled to herself, and said. "Cross. My name is Cross."

"That's good!" Elma smiled with relief. "Is there anything else you can recall?"

Cross concentrated for a while before responding. "No sorry. I can't remember anything." She paused and looked around once more before continuing. "Uhhhh. Where are we?"

"We've been calling it Starfall Basin. Don't worry about your memory for now, it will probably come back in time. Hopefully when you get back to NLA and starting seeing familiar things it will come back to you. But that will have to wait until later. It's too late to be traveling around now, I've only got the one flashlight" Elma motioned to the sky "and it's raining. We'd best wait until morning to start our way back."

Cross nodded. "Ok. That makes sense. Is there somewhere with some cover though? I'd rather not wait out the night in the rain."

Elma chuckled. "Haha. Agreed. There should be some good cover along the basin wall." Elma stood up and reached a hand down to Cross. "Can you stand?"

"I think so." Cross reached out for Elma's offered hand with one of her own and braced herself against the life hold. Then with Elma's assistance she shakily raised herself to a standing position. "Thanks."

Elma smiled. "Not a problem. Think you can walk?"

"I think so." Cross took a few halting steps forward toward the basin walls before finding her balance and turning her head to Elma. "I'm good to go. Let's go get out of this rain as best we can shall we?"

Elma picked her pack and flashlight back up while replying. "Agreed."

The pair walked over to the basin wall, where the direction of the light wind kept most of the rain of off them. Elma looked over at Cross. The young woman still looked a bit out of it. "It's probably best if you go to sleep, any questions can wait until you're more rested." She then reached into her pack and fished out her backup assault rifle and a utility knife, handing them off to Cross, who gazed at her quizzically in response. "In case we are attacked during the night. It shouldn't happen, but we can't be too careful out in the wild. You know how to use a gun right?"

Cross looked at the assault rifle a moment before raising it to a firing position. "Point and pull the trigger right?"

"Yeah. This one has also been outfitted with a small grenade launcher." Elma pointed at a secondary trigger near the front of the gun. "It's not very accurate, especially at range, so it's hard to hit moving targets with it, but it packs a lot more of a punch."

Cross inspected the gun a bit, noticing what Elma was referring. "Oh! Ok got it. How are we on ammo?"

"I have plenty of spare in my pack." Elma answered as she dug out a few rounds. "Here, you take some now in case you need to reload in combat."

Cross accepted the rounds and clipped them to her belt. "Thanks." Then she yawned. "Looks like I should get to sleep. Are you okay taking watch for the entire night then traveling tomorrow?"

Elma nodded, technically neither of their bodies needed sleep, but it was healthy for the mind, and many had trouble breaking the habit of regular sleep schedules. While Elma thought she probably could stay awake indefinitely and still get things done, it was much easier on her to catch some sleep on a regular basis. But for one night… "I've stayed up for longer. I'll be fine."

"Oh. Okay cool." Cross laid herself down on the damp grass. She muttered one last thing, "that's cool" and drifted off to a more restful sleep than the lifepod induced comatose state could provide.

Elma took a seat against a nearby rock. Cross was…odd. She seemed normal enough on the surface, but she had held that gun like someone who knew how to use it. But Elma doubted she was a solider, since she knew practically all the soldiers who were on the Whale, and she didn't recognize Cross. Probably just someone from the engineering section with a firearms hobby, Elma rationalized to herself. Maybe from the Skell development group, whose interest in the mechs had extended to the weapons they used. Kinda like that one girl, Alexis she thought it was, that Lin was friends with. Elma shook her head. It didn't matter really. Once they got back to NLA she could just look Cross up in the ships registry. For now she just needed to focus on keeping guard.

* * *

(1) For all of its beauty, Primodia's geography made almost no sense causing the geologists who had been brought along cry out in frustration and ask to be assigned to Oblivia, where at least things made SENSE(with the exception of some floating bits of land here and there) even if it didn't look as pretty and there was sand that got everywhere.

There were obvious things that no-one could explain, like the giant talon shaped overhang mountains and the insanely oversized natural bridges everywhere, the floating hunks of land to the north, the Grieving Pillars to the north west, and the undercut dome formations to the east.

Then there was Starfall Canyon. It looked normal at first, appearing to be most likely from erosion caused by some ancient river. Until you noticed that the elevation sloped UPWARD as one went away from the back of it, when one would expect the opposite based of how water and erosion worked. Some of the geologist thought that was even worse, sense it wasn't as blatantly ludicrous as the rest of Primordia and thus had caused them to get there hopes up.

Starfall Canyon even had the gall to end in Starfall Basin, which would have been classified as an ancient lakebed from its shape, except that the soil there displayed none of the telltale marks of such.

* * *

Cross yawned as she slowly opened her eyes. Everything felt sore and damp, like she had slept on the ground instead a nice bed. "Oh. Right. I did do that." She muttered.

"Hmmm?" Asked someone out of her field of vision.

It took Cross's still not completely awake brain a moment to place the voice. "Oh. Sorry Elma. Nothing important." Cross stood up, stretched, and turned to face her rescuer. Cross hadn't really been in a position to take in what Elma looked like last night, between the lack of light and the general wooziness she had been feeling. She had light brown skin, striking white-silver hair, and blue eyes a couple shade darker than Cross's own. Between her red armor and the serious way she carried herself, Cross thought she looked very much the part of a stern authority figure, but the kindness she had displayed last night showed she definitely had a soft side to her.

"Oh good. You're awake. Feeling better?" Elma asked.

Cross nodded. "Yeah. I definitely prefer beds to the outdoors though."

Elma chuckled. "I think everyone does." She stood up from her impromptu rock seat, and walked over to where she had laid down her pack. 'You ready to head out? It's the better part of a day's journey to the nearest base camp, and I'd like to reach it before nightfall." She picked up her pack and slung it onto her back then turned and winked at Cross. "They have actual beds there."

Cross laughed as she picked up the rifle and knife Elma had given her the night before. "Well then! What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Elma smiled, and began walking past Cross toward the east. As she passed Cross, Elma handed her a couple of small rectangular packages. "Here's some breakfast. Sorry it's not very tasty, but it will keep you going and is easy to eat while traveling."

Cross accepted the packages with a nod and opened them. The "food" looked amazingly bland. Some sort of off white… stuff. Then, starting to walk after Elma who was continuing to walk east, she sniffed it. Still bland. Tentatively, Cross took a small bite out of one the food bars. "Hmmm. Well. At least it doesn't taste _bad_. Though I hope the base camp has actual food _._ "

Elma just laughed.

After Cross had finished eating and taken some swigs of water from a canteen Elma had in her backpack, the pair walked in silence for a while, heading toward a gap in the cliffs that rimmed Starfall basin on its south east side. Elma finally broke the quiet. "Any luck remembering anything?" She was trying to sound nonchalant, but Cross could detect worry in her voice.

Cross shook her head. "Nothing. Sorry."

"It's not your fault. It's probably caused by the rough exit you seem to have had from the lifepod."

"The metal thing I was resting against when I first woke up?"

Elma nodded an affirmative. "Maybe it would be best if I told the story from the beginning."

"That sounds good, otherwise I would probably just end up….." Cross paused looking around setting her hand on the rifle slung across her shoulder. "Did you hear that?"

Elma had placed her hands on her guns stored in her hip holsters. "Yes. From the sound of how big it is and what we know of the indigenes that live in this area I'd guess it's a blatta."

"Blatta?"

"They look roughly like beetles, but range from the size of a cat to a large dog. They typically hunt in groups, or lie in ambush, but sometimes they hunt solo. But they normally hunt at night. This one must be desperate."

Cross nodded, drawing her rifle. "Anything else I should know?"

Elma opted to draw her swords instead of her own guns. "The shells, especially the front portions, are hard enough to give them some protection against bullets and they primarily attack with their mandibles, trying to bite you. But they can also rub their vestigial wings together fast enough to make sound loud enough that it hurts and can put you off balance momentarily. If you draw its attention, I'll go after its vulnerable backside and try and destroy its wings so it doesn't do that. If you can, aim for the eyes or where the shell splits open to let the wings out, the shell is weakest there"

"Sounds like a plan."

The two cautiously advanced toward the exit to Starfall Basin, keeping their weapons drawn and their eyes out for their hunter. Finally the blatta burst out from the surrounding bushes and lunged at the pair. Crosses first thought was "Wow! That is a really big beetle!" Her second thought, "It looks like it wants to eat me", which followed instantly behind the first, was accompanied by shooting it in the face.

The blatta didn't seem overly deterred by the bullets, though Cross did see parts of its shell chip off, and kept charging, prompting Cross to walk backward as fast she could while reloading. She would have just dodged sideways, but she didn't want to risk losing its attention and costing Elma her plan of backstabbing it, since the white haired woman had already circled about halfway around it.

Cross immediately regretted taking her eyes off the creature to check on her partners progress, as it had gotten almost right next to her and looked like it was preparing to leap towards her midsection, its razor sharp mandibles glinting in the sun.

"Crap!" Cross thought has she turned her rifle ninety degrees and inserted it between the creature's mandibles.

The blatta's head bonked into the rifle, sending Cross stumbling back under the force of the creatures weight, though she managed to remain upright.

Cross could now see Elma some yards behind the creature, also apparently having underestimated the speed it would charge at.

The blatta meanwhile, was continuing to press forward, trying to push the rifle close enough to Cross's chest so that its mandibles on either side could dig into her chest. Cross pushed back with all her strength, but the creatures four limbed stance was giving it a serious leverage advantage against her.

Then it's back shell split open, and the wings that were being covered rose and began to vibrate.

Cross mentally swore, while calling out "Elma!" desperately.

Any response from her partner was drowned out by the shear noise of the shriek the blatta's wings made as the rubbed up against each other. Just as Elma had said, the high pitched noise physically hurt and made concentrating hard, Cross could already feel her grip on her rifle loosening, and her vision started to blur from the pain. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the noise stopped, and Cross saw Elma behind the blatta, her twin swords impaled through the wings into the back.

The swords withdrew as Elma readied another strike, her current lunging stance not well suited for giving the leverage needed to push the swords in deeper.

The blatta staggered backward from Cross in pain. Estimating that she didn't have time to actually shoot the thing again, Cross instead just bashed it with her rifle.

Already off balance from getting its wings ripped to shreds and stabbed in the back, the force of the hit knocked the blatta over onto its back. Elma instantly leapt back while shouting. "Cross! Grenade!"

Cross smirked, leveling her rifle at the blatta that was still trying to right itself. She pulled the secondary trigger on the front of the gun, and with a thunk the grenade leapt from the short barrel underneath the main one toward the blatta.

Then it exploded.

When the light of the flash cleared, and Cross had blinked the spots out of her eyes, she could tell the the blatta was definitely dead. Things that charred did not move.

Elma was already wiping the creatures blood off of her swords on the grass. "Not bad for your first fight. I'm sorry it got that close though. It charged much faster than I thought."

Cross took a deep breath, calming herself down from the adrenaline of the fight. "Its fine. I don't think it could have seriously injured me before you got to it. And now I know what to expect if we fight one again. Although," Cross motioned to her rather basic clothes. "I would prefer some actual armor."

Elma cocked her head inquisitively as she sheathed her swords. "So you're not averse to doing this kind of thing?"

Cross thought for a bit before responding, excusing her delayed response by returning her rifle to its resting spot on her back. "I think I may have done something like this before. It felt kinda familiar."

"Well, there is plenty of work back in the city who can handle a weapon you know. I could probably get you a job easily if you are interested." Something passed across Elma's face before she replied, but the look was gone so fast Cross wasn't sure if she had actually seen it, and the white haired woman's tone of voice betrayed nothing unusual.

With nothing concrete to go on, Cross decided to ignore it for now. "Yeah. I think I'd like to test out some other weapons first though. You know. See if I had trained with anything before? Developed some muscle memory?"

Elma nodded. "A good idea. Still, we should probably give you the opportunity to practice with what you've got now on the way back, the indigens near NLA are a bit more dangerous than the ones in these parts."

"Sounds smart." Cross replied as the pair began walking onward. "So anyway. Before the giant bug interrupted us, you were going to tell me the story of whats going on?"

"Ah right. Well, it all started about twenty years ago, when the Earth received signs that the planet would be attacked by aliens in about twenty years…."

* * *

Authors Note:

I tried to capture how the battle mechanics work, and find a realistic way to present them, and I like to think I did a decent job. Some of the more... realistically odd things like buff arts and such get covered next chapter.


	3. Chapter 2

Elma and Cross continued eastward toward NLA while Elma told Cross about how they had ended up on Mira. How the two alien fleets had fought near Earth, causing massive collateral damage to the planet, and its eventual destruction when a capital ship from one side crashed onto the planet releasing the singularity that was powering it. How Earth's governments had known the attack was coming and prepared colony ships knowing that they had no chances of fending off the much more advanced alien fleets. How the White Whale, the colony ship from the west coast of the United States had been attacked once again by the hostile aliens after traveling in space for a couple years and crashlanding on Mira as a result. The story was interrupted on occasion when they saw a creature Cross had never encountered before so Elma could give her a brief lecture on it, or on the couple occasions a hungry blatta or adescula, which were basically oversized mosquitoes, would attack them and they were forced to fend it off, and once when they had stopped to eat by the small lake that had formed at a low point in the ravine.

During their journey they came across a few damaged life pods Elma had found the previous day but had skipped over. Elma, not wanting to risk Cross's already iffy mental state by having her see the mangled bodies inside, asked her to keep watch while she checked them for usable parts, stowing her findings in her bag. There wasn't much that she could carry back herself, but as she explained to Cross, every little bit helped, and now they had the precise locations of these for a helicopter to come pick them up.

Once Elma had caught Cross up and answered the young woman's clarifying questions the two walked in companionably silence, given Elma a chance to ponder the mystery that was her young companion.

Cross had performed well in the combats they had been in, seemingly only bogged down by the fact that she was unfamiliar with the weapons she was using. With the apparent sever and somewhat random extent of Cross's memory loss (Elma had even needed to explain what a helicopter was) she wasn't sure if this meant that Cross was used to fighting with different weapons, or if she had just forgotten how to fight with what she was using now. Either way, Elma mused, Cross hadn't forgotten how to fight in general, she was good at reading the battle and had picked up on her new weapons fast. While apparently uncomfortable wielding the knife Elma had given her, the young woman looked for and took opportunities to dash in at an enemy's flank and score a solid hit. She had even figured out how to channel ether through the focusing crystal set in the knife's hilt to form a barrier that would lessen the impact of physical blows. It wasn't that impressive of a feat on its own, since the crystal had been designed to support that kind of ether manipulation, but it was impressive that Cross had known to do so with no prompting from Elma.

Overall it reinforced Elma's initial impression that Cross had been with the military. Elma shook her head. That still didn't make sense, she knew all the military personnel on the ship, and Cross wasn't one of them. Ex-military then? But Cross seemed comfortable in combat, so that didn't make sense, as she seemed much too young to have left for anything other than personal reasons. Unless the memories of whatever had made her quit were lost because of the amnesia?

"Hey Elma? You okay?" Cross asked, shaking Elma out of her contemplation.

"Oh. Sorry for worrying you. Just lost in my thoughts." Elma nonchalantly replied, not wanting to give Cross any indication that she was this worried about were Cross came from.

"Cool. I'd have let you be, but it looks like we are almost at the end of this canyon."

Elma nodded. Had they really gotten that far already? She really needed to stop worrying about this. She could just check the ship's records when they got back to New Los Angeles and everything would be cleared up. Speaking of…"Once we crest this ridge you should be able to see NLA, our city here on Mira" Elma informed Cross.

"Oh awesome!" Cross sounded enthusiastic at the prospect. "And from there it's not far to the base camp?"

Or, Elma mused, the young woman was just looking forward to a night spent on an actual bed.

As they crested the ridge out of Starfall Canyon onto what the mapmakers had dubbed Shadow Rise, Elma gestured grandly to the vista of Primordia and NLA the site granted. With her best announcer voice, she introduced Cross to humanity's new home "Welcome to Mira!"

* * *

Cross gaped at the view as they crossed over the ridge onto Shadow Rise. The walls of the city in the distance mus be absolutly massive if she could read the lettering on them so clearly at this distance. A few titanic towers poked out above the wall from inside the city, and there were massive blue icy looking spikes poking up all around the city like a barricade. And two absolutely gigantic moons hung in the sky behind it. And there was that crazy looking massive talon shaped mountain to the north. And there were crazy big flying things with big accordion mouths and bunches of glassy looking wings floating through the sky. And there were a couple of even bigger quadrupeds with super long necks drinking from a lake to the north west. And and and…. it was to much to take in at once, so Cross sat down in case she lost her balance from how much stuff there was to see.

Elma, curse her, just chuckled. "It's a lot to take in huh?"

"I... wow. Just wow. That's a lot of stuff. How does that mountain even work?" Cross answered, pointing at the giant talon shaped mountain.

Elma chuckled again. "Talon Rock? Don't ask the scientists. They haven't figured out how most of this planet's geology works. All of our geologists are pretty much ignoring everything but Oblivia, the continent east of this one, where the geography makes sense." Elma paused for a moment. "Except the floating islands of course."

"Floating… islands?" Cross asked, very confused. "Like. Floating in the sky?"

Elma nodded, and pointed to the near side of Talon Rock. "Indeed. There a couple in Primordia to. If you look where I'm pointing, though they are kinda hard to see at this distance."

Cross looked where Elma was pointing. "Ohh! I think I see them! Weird."

"Very." Elma replied before gesturing behind her at the now setting sun. "Common, it's almost night and we are almost at the base camp, let's get going."

"Yeah! I'm looking forward to that bed." Cross enthused, heading off before stopping as she realized something. Elma had pointed at the setting sun. Which was behind them. Which was where the sun had risen. Cross wondered how she hadn't notice that before. Had she really been that distracted by all the things on the ground that she didn't notice how strange the sky was. "Uhhhh. Elma? How is the sun setting behind us? Shouldn't it set in the opposite horizon it rose at?"

Elma smirked before replying. "I was wondering when you would notice. Come on now, I'll explain as we walk." Elma started walking down the slope to the north, with Cross following at her side. "The system Mira is in is very strange. Firstly, the five moons, though you can't see all of them now because of the clouds, are both tidally locked to the planet, so they only show one face, and orbit the planet at such a speed that they exactly match the speed the planet rotates, thus appearing to never move."

"Whoa. All five?" Cross gasped. "I'm no expert… well I suppose I might have been, but I can't remember anything so I'm not now, but isn't that crazy unlikely? And what about the sun?"

"Indeed. The scientists get all upset about the probability behind that to. The sun's strange behavior is because the planet isn't orbiting it. The sun is actually orbiting a black hole, and the planet is stuck in a lagrangian point between the black hole and something we haven't been able to detect yet, and the rotational and orbital periods are such that it causes the sun to both rise and set in the west." Elma then tried describing exactly how that worked, but the explanation just flew right over Cross's head.

Cross shook her head, amazed. "Wow. I understood, like none of that."

Elma laughed. "It took them showing me a simulation for me to get it. Astrophysics isn't really my strong suit, I'm much better with mechanical engineering."

"Oh cool! Wait, if you're an engineer, why are you out here?" Cross said, then hurriedly added "Uhhh, didn't mean to sound rude or anything."

Elma waved it off. "Don't worry, it's fine. I'm a skilled fighter and engineer, but right now we need more fighters than we do engineers. Lots of the indigens are pretty aggressive toward us. Maybe once we're more established here I can go back to engineering work, but for now I'm more useful on the front lines."

"Ok. That makes sense" Cross answered. She paused for a moment reflecting on what Elma had said. The usually taciturn woman sounded almost wistful about taking up engineering again. She thought about asking more about Elma's past, but decided they hadn't really known each other long enough to ask such personal questions. And, Cross realized as she spied some makeshift metal structures among a copse of trees, they were almost at the base camp.

Shadow Rise base camp was marked by a rotating sign on top a scissor lift, emblazoned with a green sigil of three nested 'v''s over-top the word "PATHFINDERS", who Elma explained to be the division in charge of exploring Mira.

The camp itself consisted of a couple prefabricated shelters, some piles of supplies, two humvees with some sort of gun on the back, and some tents.

There were five people in some sort of lightly armored uniform about the camp, working on the humvees or sitting down to eat. One, a serious looking man, noticed their approach and ran up to greet them.

"Elma! How are you? Who is this? Were are …"

Elma cut him off before he could continue. "I'm fine Greg. This is Cross, she's the only person I found whose lifepod landed safely." She motioned to a tent. "Come on, I'll give a full report in private." Elma then turned to Cross. "Why don't you go introduce yourself to everyone and get some food. Maybe ask if there are any spare sets of armor around you can use?"

Cross nodded, taking the hint that Elma didn't want to talk to her about whatever had caused her to interrupt Greg.

Walking over to the tent where two of the remaining for Pathfinders, both men, one with tanned skinned at brown hair and the other black haired and fair skinned, were eating dinner Cross gave out a friendly "Hey!" and a wave as a greeting.

The pair waved back and introduced themselves as Ricardo and Desmond, Ricardo being the brown haired one and Desmond the black. The two pulled up a chair for her and got an extra prepacked meal cooking for her. In the meantime, Ricardo entreated her to try some suid stake.

Happily accepting Cross dug into the meet, asking what a suid was between mouthfuls. Desmond proceeded to describe it as a big angry pig with that had a habit of spitting acid, making Cross ask what a pig was. The look of pure confusion on their faces caused Cross to apologize and explain about her memory loss. The two made sympathetic noises and then, after handing Cross her meal, began to regale her with tales of humanity's homeworld.

After the meal and the accompanying stories were done, Cross thanked the two and asked where she might find some actual armor and where she could turn in for the night. Desmond directed her to a stack of crates that contained backup armor in case theirs or any travelers got damaged and told her that the rightmost shelter was reserved for travelers.

With another thanks and a cheery, if somewhat tired, wave Cross went over to the crates and looked through them for some armor in her size. It took some rummaging, but she eventually found some that fitted well enough, and took them with her to the sleeping shelter, where she found Elma waiting.

"Have a good meal?" The white haired women asked.

"It was nice. The suid stake was a little tough though." Cross responded.

Elma shrugged and opened the door to the shelter, letting Cross enter first. "It's pretty good when well prepared, I guess those two aren't the best cooks then." Once they were both inside and seated on the beds, Elma motioned at the armor Cross was carrying and continued talking. "Looks like you found some new things to wear. Hopefully we won't need it between here and the city though."

Cross nodded. "It looks pretty far off. How long of a walk is it?"

"About a week." Elma answered, but before Cross could say anything about that, she continued talking. "Fortunately, the rail gun on the back of one of the humvees isn't working, and since they don't have the parts to fix it here they need it taken back NLA anyway, so we can just drive in that."

"That's convenient." Cross commented.

"For us at least." Elma responded as she stood up. "Anyway, I'm going to take a shower. After that I'm off to bed, I'm going to try and catch up for last night."

Cross nodded "I think I'll shower in the morning. Helps wake me up. I'm just gonna crash now. 'Night Elma."

"Good night Cross." Elma answered as she walked to the bathroom.

Cross gave a contented sigh as she laid back across the bed. Beds, she mused, were pretty much the best thing ever. Even if she couldn't remember much, she was still pretty sure nothing was better than a nice bed. The memory thing was still concerning, though she thought overall she was taking it rather well, no panic attacks or anything. It was probably because Elma had said that she should get them back in time, and so far the she had been nothing but supportive and helpful so Cross saw no reason not to trust her on that.

"Better get some shut eye." Cross mumbled to herself. Tomorrow it was off to New Los Angeles, where from what Elma had said she had probably spent a lot of time before. Maybe something there would trigger her memories. And if not, she'd keep on going regardless. That's what she did when thing got tough, she just kept going forward.

And with that last thought, Cross drifted to sleep.


	4. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Sorry for the rather extensive delay in updates so early on. End of college stuff hit hard, and then my computer needed to go into the shop(and it had to get mailed all the way across the freakin country if I wanted to get it looked at under the warranty!). But I'm graduated now and my computer is back, so updates should resume at a normal pace. As an apology, chapter 4 is also being posted today.**

Cross woke up the next morning, feeling infinitely more refreshed than she had then after her previous night's sleep upon the ground. As she stretched luxuriously upon sitting up on the bed, she noticed Elma still sleeping across from her. Cross chuckled a little, it looks like her companions claims of being fine without sleep may not have been entirely accurate. Or, she mused as she glanced out the window and saw that the strangely moving sun wasn't up yet, it was just really early.

"Time to take a shower then." Cross muttered quietly so as to not wake Elma. She gave a little sniff. "Yep. Definitely time for a shower."

* * *

After a nice hot shower, Cross put on the armor she had found yesterday. It wasn't the heaviest stuff, just some sturdy leather like material reinforced with some metal plates, but it was infinitely better than the non-existent protection the shirt and pants she had been wearing had provided, and she decided that she didn't much like the idea of being bogged down by heavy armor much anyways. Staying out of harm's way seemed like a much better plan.

Having finished putting her armor on, she looked around the sleeping quarters and noticed that Elma was gone. "Wow. Did I really get so focused that I missed her leaving?" Cross wondered.

"Actually," Elma replied, having appeared at the door at just the opportune moment. "I woke up while you were in the shower and went to get us some breakfast." Elma proffered a steaming bowl. "Oatmeal?"

"Sure." Cross said, taking the offered bowl and digging in. It didn't taste like much, but it filled the stomach. "Anything I should know before we head out?" she asked between bites.

"We'll be taking the route across the natural bridges over the coastline. That should let us get back to the city by nightfall if we go fast, but the bridges aren't wide enough maneuver around any hostile indigens we may encounter, so we might have to fight. Are you fine with that?"

Cross nodded an affirmative. "I'm good with that. What kind of things are we talking about."

Elma pondered a moment before replying. "Most likely suids and lepyxes. Suids aren't too tough, though they are bulky and like to charge. They can also spit globs of corrosive stomach acid. Lepyxes are another matter. They are big, tough, hit hard, and can cause localized gravity disturbances that are very painful."

Cross quirked an eyebrow at that. "Seriously? They manipulate gravity?"

Elma nodded. "Yes. They channel ether through glands in their legs. The glands are obvious, they glow a bright blue, so if they are taken out the Lepyx can't do its gravity manipulation any more. Hopefully it won't come to that though. Lepyxes are normally docile, so we will only have to fight one if it's blocking the path, since driving near one will provoke it, and I don't want the humvee getting knocked over the edge with us in it."

Cross shuddered a bit. Falling to her death in a vehicle was not how she wanted to go. Falling in general was something she rather hoped to avoid. "Agreed. Well, if that all, lets head on out."

"Fine with me." Elma agreed as she headed out toward the humvee.

* * *

At about mid-day Cross had decided that she didn't like suids. They were ugly, with their wrinkled leathery skin, disgusting looking matted hair, and the giant bulge on their head that looked all too much like a massive pimple. They were also annoyingly aggressive, and pretty much every single one she and Elma had come across had decided to try and bull rush them off of the arches. And worst their stupid upchucking stomach acid stung like a bitch. Fortunately it didn't seem to harm her armor, but unfortunately some it always seemed to find a way to seep through and start eating her skin.

She was very glad that she had figured out how to use the ether focus on the dagger hilt to provide a steady, if slow, source of healing. If not she was pretty sure her skin would be gone by now. Elma had looked surprised when had figured out how to do that, though Cross wasn't sure why, it's not like the gem wasn't already set up to support that kind of ether use, even if was only as a secondary trait to the primary method of dampening physical blows.

She and Elma had been sticking to much the same combat strategy they had used the previous day. Cross would catch the enemy's attention while Elma got to its side or back and dug into it with her dual swords and guns. Every now and then they would knock the enemy off balance and Cross would give it a solid whack with her rifle followed up by a grenade.

Despite the interruptions of the local suids, they were making good time. It helped of course that Elma seemed to be a bit of a speed demon in the humvee, and that she kept her perfectly calm demeanor while doing it only made it seem even odder to Cross. If the path they were traveling wasn't predominately straight she was sure she would have freaked out at the idea they would get sent careening over the edge.

As they approached the end of the second and last bridge, Elma slowed the vehicle down to a crawl and pointed at a large form amongst some trees at the edge of the bridge. "There's a lepyx, and it doesn't look like we are going to be able to get passed it unnoticed in the humvee, the bridge is too narrow for that here."

Cross gazed at the creature. It was massive, easily over twelve feet tall. It looked vaguely like shell less snail with four scaly legs, purple on top and bottom and tan in the middle and at the head.. "Alright then." Cross took a deep breath. "Same plan as before?"

"Indeed. Remember to aim for the gravity glands first."

"Got it. Let's do this." With that the two drew their weapons and hopped out of the humvee, approaching toward the lepyx slowly.

Once they got close Elma motioned that she was going to start heading around to its side and that Cross should begin engaging the lepyx at her pleasure. Cross nodded in response. _It looks like she wants to try and get the drop on it,_ Cross thought as Elma disappeared into the trees that really shouldn't have been thick enough to disappear into. "How did she do THAT?" Cross quietly wondered. "Is she that good at hiding? No matter. Let's do this."

With a calming breath to psych her up for the largest thing she had fought yet, Cross leveled her rifle at the lepyx's left front leg, on the opposite side from where Elma had disappeared. The gland that let the creature manipulate gravity was obvious, a bright cyan thing that looked barely contained by the surrounding flesh. It was an obvious target, and the lepyx wasn't moving right now. Cross readjusted her grip. An easy shot, even with the inaccurate grenade launcher. She pulled the front trigger and the thermal grenade thunked away from her, impacting the gland with a flash.

The lepyx let out a pained howl, and swung its head toward Cross before beginning to stomp its way toward her on its weirdly elastic legs. With each step Cross noticed that the glands on its legs seemed to glow slightly, though she couldn't see the one she had shot very well since it appeared to have caught on fire. "Interesting." she thought as she opened fire on the gland with her bullets, "But now isn't the time, I need to break them."

Right when the lepyx had almost reached her, Elma came dashing out of the trees, guns trained on and firing at the front right leg. Once she got close, she, to Cross's amazement, lept up toward the gland, stoweing her guns and drawing her swords in one quick motion during the leap, ending with her twin blades impaled in the gland and her hanging from the creature's side. The lepyx howled once again, and Elma responded by wrenching her swords out of the gland side wise, releasing a splatter of blue fluid and dropping her to the ground, thought she turned the impact with the ground into a roll that left her standing.

Noticing the creature seemed off balance from the pain, Cross gave out a mighty yell and charged the remaining distance to it, changing her grip on her rifle to one better suited to bashing things.

Once she reached the lepyx Cross whacked the leg Elma had just injured as hard as she could with her rifle, buckling the elastic appendage side wise and sending the entire creature to the ground.

Glancing to the creatures other side, Cross noticed that the the gland she had lit on fire earlier had stopped glowing and fluid was leaking out of it. Declaring it thoroughly broken she turned her attention to the back right leg. Elma had disappeared again, but Cross figured that she had merely dashed around to the creatures other side and was hidden by its bulk, leaving this leg for her. Given that Elma's swords had made quick work of the previous gland, Cross pulled out her knife and got out a few quick slashes before she heard Elma's warning shout "Get BACK!" from behind her.

Cross turned back toward the creatures front out of instinct, while also beginning to channel ether through the focus in the knife's hilt, focusing her thoughts on the ideas of protection and armor.

Right as she had turned about halfway around she saw the Lepyx beginning to pick itself up with its front legs and the creatures massive head swinging her way, the neck bending a seemingly impossible degree to let it reach.

"Fu-" was all Cross managed to get out before the Lepyx's head barreled into her torso, only barely slowed down by the ether shield she had hastily formed. The impact sent her flying backward, her flight only ending when she impacted a tree several meters away.

"Owwwwwwww" Cross moaned as she even picked herself up, already beginning to slowly poor ether through her knifes focus again, though this time she focused on healing herself as she did so. She bemoaned the poor quality of the crystal that only let her pass small amounts of ether through at a time. She'd have been able to form a much stronger shield and heal herself much faster otherwise. Looking back toward the fight, she saw the Lepyx furiously swinging it's head at Elma, the silver haired woman only barely managing to avoid taking more than a glancing blow with a series of impressive acrobatic maneuvers. Elma seemed slightly blurred, though Cross chalked that up to the dizziness from impacting a tree trunk.

Not wanting to leave her companion fighting alone for too long Cross hurriedly began reloading her rifle, almost slamming the next magazine of bullets into it. As soon as she was done, she raised the rifle and fired toward the creature's head, just as it was gearing up for another swing at Elma. Unsurprisingly given the hasty aiming and the moving target, most of the bullets wizzed passed harmlessly, but a few scored clean hits. The lepyx paused in confusion, apparently having thought Cross out of the fight, giving Elma the opportunity to dash around to its left side.

Cross then turned her attention to the remaining gland on her side, pumping bullet into it. As she was about to lose a grenade, the lepyx's main body shot up, its legs stretching out in a manner that would have looked comical, if the glow of the remaining two ether glands hadn't clued Cross into what it was about to do.

As Elma's unnecessary, if appreciated, shout of "Brace yourself!" reached her ears Cross began pouring ether through her knifes focus faster than was strictly safe, hoping to heal the last of the damage her body had taken in the previous impact bbefore the gravity distortion hit.

With "whompf" the lepyx's body came crashing back down, the light in the two remaining ether glands flaring so bright it was almost blinding. A ripple speed out through the air in a sphere so fast that Cross was sure she would have missed it if she blinked or wasn't paying attention. As it hit her Cross screamed in pain, it felt like she was being crushed and stretched apart all at once. Fortunately, the sensation passed almost as quickly as it has arrived, though the lingering soreness from the pain was palpable.

Then the lepyx roared in pain again, as Elma jumped at its rear right leg, repeating her opening tactic from the battle. Shaking her self together, Cross resumed her fire on the last gland, using the burst of bullets to aim her grenade. After adjusting slightly, she pulled the trigger for the grenade launcher.

The grenade connected with a satisfying explosion, ripping final the already damage ether gland to shreds. The lepyx roared in pain yet again, and Cross charge the leg, raising her rifle for a strike, hoping that like last time time the leg would be off balance enough for her to buckle it.

Her gambit payed of as the lepyx once again collapsed to the ground. Cross immediately move to follow up, drawing her knife and impaling it into the creature's side, then ripping it sideways.

As she drew her knife out to prepare for another strike, she heard the sound of gunfire from above her, and jerked her head upward to see Elma leaping on top of it with her guns blazing. As Elma's jump began its descent she dropped her guns and drew her swords, and upon landing, began viciously chopping into the creature's backside. As chunks of flesh flew out, the Lepyx gave one last roar, though feeble this time, as it tried to stand, but instead it just flopped to the ground, still.

Cross sighed. It was over. It had hurt a turn, but they head beaten it, and now she could heal herself, and everything was over. But first, she had one thing to say...

* * *

Elma collected her guns, and slid of the back of the now dead Lepyx. She looked at Cross, who stared at their defeated foe for a second before turning to her and declaring in an authoritative voice. "Fuck those things. I hope I never see one again. Owww."

Elma quirked her eyebrow, she hadn't been expecting that reaction. But before she could say anything, Cross continued, looking a tad sheepish. "Sorry, but that gravity pulse thing really hurt. Just had to vent a little."

Elma nodded. "It's fine. I'm just glad you're alright. I had really hopped we could take out its ability to do that faster, but I guess it's just not a two man job. We won't have to fight any more though, we're almost at the end of the arches, and once we get of them we'll have room to maneuver around any Lepyx's we come across."

Cross rubbed the back of her head and looked at the ruined ether glands. "Yeah." She paused briefly, as if considering something. "Still! We did pretty good I'd say! Two and a half out of four isn't bad at all. And you were amazing! The jumping, the dodging, that sleek way you seamlessly switch between swords and guns."

Elma smiled, had she been younger and less used to combat, she was sure she would have blushed, but for better or for worse repeated fighting had cured her of such reactions to complements of her battle skill. She shook her head, trying to brush it off. "I've just trained a lot. You're doing very well for some with amnesia however. I'd say you're a natural. I don't think I've seen someone with your potential in a long while"

Cross blushed lightly at that, causing Elma to grin. It seemed the brunette was not as immune to praise as she was. "Thanks! That means a lot from someone as good as you." Cross looked down, just now noticing the blue Lepyx blood staining her armor. "Yuck. Shall we get going? I'd really like to get to NLA so I can clean this off."

"Are you good to go? You took a couple solid hits back there." Elma questioned. She didn't want Cross moving too much if she was still hurt, the humvee's suspension was good, but it wasn't perfect.

"Yeah I'm good." Cross nodded understandingly. "I healed it all up."

Elma shook her head. That couldn't have been right. "Are you sure you're okay? It takes time to fix yourself with ether. Especially when you're first starting out."

"Yeah I'm sure." Cross pulled out her knife with one hand and gestured at the focus in its hilt with the other. "It's not that hard to use these things once you get a feel for the focus. This one is pretty shabby though. I had to concentrate pretty hard to push ether through it. The dual purposes of it doesn't help either. I mean I get that you can't really fit more than one foci on a knife, but it's much easier to use a crystal solely designed for one purpose."

"Well if you're sure then" Elma said, careful to keep her voice neutral as confusion swirled in her head. Cross talked about using ether like it was the simplest thing. Like it was second nature to her. Humanity hadn't even had functional ether technology for more than about fifteen years. Even Elma wasn't very good using it, though she _had_ always had a preference towards the more .… call it concrete, side of things. And to top it all off Cross had called the knife's focus shabby! Now Elma would admit it wasn't top of the line or anything, it was only a backup weapon, but still, it was a solid piece of gear. Had the gem been damaged or something maybe? Elma groaned slightly. To many things about Cross made no sense.

"Uhhh. Elma? Are you okay?" Cross asked, as she bent forward to look at Elma more closely, as if she was trying to see if she had been wounded.

Elma waved her off. "I'm fine. Its nothing. Just remembered all the paperwork I am going to need to do when I get back." That was a blatant lie, she just didn't want worry Cross until she could check and confirm that something about Cross really was weird. There was probably some explanation for everything she just wasn't thinking of. Though…. it wasn't a total lie actually. She would have some paperwork to due, but Vandham hated it to, so he made sure the amount his subordinates had to do was light. She started toward their vehicle. "Let's get going shall we? Clean clothes await."

Cross chuckled. "Well in that case what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

The two hopped in the humvee and Elma drove off toward NLA, some clean clothes and good food, and best of all, answers about her new companion.

 **Author's note the second: How many arts can you identify Elma and Cross using in this chapter? There should be ten total.**


	5. Chapter 4

As the land bridges along the north-western coast of Primordia emptied out onto what Elma informed her was rather unimaginatively called the West Gate Plain, Cross relaxed. Elma's driving was scary. In Cross's opinion, they had been going entirely to fast for how narrow those bridges had been, so being somewhere that had land further than ten feet on either side of you at all times was a relief. In her opinion the only thing that could have made this better was if the sun on this stupid planet behaved normally, then they could have been driving into the sunset perfectly framed by the shallow valley they were now in.

She bet it would have looked gorgeous reflecting off of the giant crystals poking out from behind the hill on their right. Cross had initially assumed them to be ice, and had asked Elma how they were still frozen, only to be informed that they were actually made from the shock gel that was deployed to keep the city's crash landing from brutally killing everyone inside. Now that she was closer to them, Cross could tell that they didn't really look like ice, the spikes were much to cyan. Or was it teal? "Stupid artists and their stupid color words." Cross muttered to herself.

Elma glanced over, though to Cross's relief, the driver's diverted attention didn't seem to be interfering with the vehicle going straight. "What was that?"

Cross chuckled. "Just lamenting the fact that there are entirely to many names for colors."

Elma looked at her strangely for a while, before apparently deciding to just ignore it. "Well anyway, we are about at the end of this valley now, so we should be able to see the west gate momentarily."

Cross gave an appreciative hum, and then leaned out the side of the humvee, eager to get a clean view of NLA. So far her only views of the city had been at extreme distance or obscured by hills and trees, and she was eager to properly see the place she would be calling home.

Elma gave a chuckle at Cross's eagerness before speaking. "You wont be able to see the city proper of course. The wall is in the way and the entry slopes down long enough that the view is…."

Elma cut off suddenly as they rounded the hill and the West Gate came into view. Cross could tell why to. The gate was clearly closed and tiny figures Cross assumed to be armed guards were standing outside of it.

Elma looked at Cross while reaching behind her and grabbing the holsters her swords and guns were in. "They only would have closed the gate if there were hostile indigens in the area. Get ready."

Cross nodded wordlessly, reaching for her rifle, her knife's sheath still on her waist. Elma slowed down their approach, and began scanning the area around them, looking out for danger. Cross followed suit, keeping her rifle trained in hopes of getting in some early shots any attackers.

Once they had cleared about a third of the distance to the gate, Cross spotted three creatures cresting the ridge to their left. Brown skinned and quadrupedal, with a low slung head and a wicked looking barbed tail, the three creatures looked like there upper body was covered in gleaming metal. Cross thought they looked like rather like arrowheads. Angry, hungry, massive arrowheads, she amended; while not as big as the lepyx, they were still big, standing maybe as tall as her. "Elma! On our left!"

Elma's head jerked to the indicated side, and once she caught sight of the quickly approaching creatures she slammed on the brakes and turned toward the creatures while shouting. "Grexes! I'm going to try and get us behind them, so shoot them in the back once I do, the armor doesn't cover their rears. After that get out of the vehicle! They will tip it if we stay in or use it for cover!" As Elma gave her instructions the humvee fishtailed along the grass before regaining its traction and making a beeline for the grexes.

"Got it!" Cross responded, hoping to the back seat so she wouldn't have to fire across Elma to hit any of the creatures that might get to their left.. She really hoped Elma's driving skill didn't break down, she had no desire to hit one of these things head on. As they rapidly approached, Cross could see that the lead Grex was heading straight for them, and that there maybe enough room to pass between it and the on the left. Cross leveled her gun at the leaders left side, then let out a burst of gunfire once the were about twenty yards apart. The bullets didn't seem to do much, but it did make the creature flinch away to their right.

Elma took the opportunity and skidded the humvee into the now widened gap, though she didn't manage to make it through cleanly. Fortunately, it was the left grex and not them that took the brunt of the damage from the collision. The impact of the colliding humvee sent it sprawling sideways, and there was a sickening crunch of breaking bones as the reinforced front left tire ran over its rear paw. Cross had already begun to turn to shoot it in anticipation of once they had passed the creatures, but took the opportunity to fire at its exposed stomach now. A quick clatter of bullets and the thump of a grenade erupted from her gun, digging into the creature's stomach, the grenade's explosion opening a nasty looking wound. Between that and the broken leg, Cross was pretty sure they had knocked it out of the fight.

Then pain erupted, as electricity jolted into her body. Fortunately it passed quickly, and then they were stopping, Elma quickly blurting out that the leader had swung its tail at the as they passed and that the creatures could deliver a nasty electric shock through said appendage.

Cross merely groaned in frustration, everything on this damn planet was ridiculous apparently, and vaulted out the side of the humvee while grabbing her knife and starting to pump ether through the focus to heal herself. She managed to twist herself around in the air to land facing grexes, who had turned around themselves, and happily noted that they had manage to knock out the one they had hit with the humvee. The two remaining were approaching cautiously, there tails raised like a scorpion ready to strike, seemingly weary from the loss of their comrade.

They had ended up about thirty yards from the creatures Cross noted as she hastily reloaded her rifle. "Right then! Let's do this!" She shouted to Elma, who nodded grimly.

"Don't waste bullets on their fronts at this range, the armored hide is too thick." Elma suggested as the two grexes slowly moved into a flanking position. Elma and Cross likewise maneuvered themselves to be back to back, both keeping an eye one of their adversaries, Elma on the leader, and Cross on the other.

Both sides remained in a stand off for a while, neither willing to make the first move. Finally, the grex on Cross's side leapt forward at a blistering speed, try to ram them. Cross franticly dove out of the way, pumping ether into her knife's focus to protect herself against the hit if she didn't make doge it while calling out "Get out of the way!" to Elma.

Cross didn't manage to dodge completely, but the mere glancing blow to her leg was almost completely negated by her shield of ether. Elma, meanwhile, had managed to avoid the attack by springing backward _over_ the creature's body, landing in a roll to absorb her momentum. 'Man,' Cross mused as she picked herself up 'I've got to remember to ask how she keeps doing that.'

As Cross restored her grip on her rifle, Elma dashed forward shooting the creature, which had skidded to a stop after missing its targets, and once she had closed the gap, fluidly switching to her swords, which she then used to lop of the Grex's tail. Cross took the creature's pained distraction as an opportunity to try and repeat her earlier shot on the third grex and aimed her grenade launcher at the ground under its stomach. Before it could recover from the loss of its appendage, she pulled the secondary trigger.

Though the damage wasn't as bad as when she had hit the other grex directly, it was enough to severely wound the creature and send its sprawling. Elma followed up on the hit, quickly running up the the creature's side front and stabbing her one of her sword's point down into its exposed eye socket, reaching the brain and killing it.

Satisfied that the second grex was dead, Cross returned her attention to the leader, finding it barreling toward Elma. "ELMA! GET OUT OF THE WAY!" She screamed while desperately trying to force enough ether through the focus on her knife to form the shield at a distance. As her concentration and frustration butted up against the poor quality of the crappy gemstone Cross swore mentally that if Elma got seriously hurt because of this she would find whoever made this piece of shit and teach them a lesson about how to make proper ether foci.

Fortunately for the employes at Sakuraba industries, Elma seemed to blur, and reappeared two feet to the Grex's side. Cross had enough time realize that it hadn't been dizziness that had made Elma seem blurry back at the fight with the lepyx. Elma was teleporting….or something. Cross's reflection was cut short as the Grex's tail whipped around to Elma's new location, intent on spearing her mid section.

Not sure if Elma could do whatever she had just done again, Cross grunted with effort as she willed the ether around her to protect Elma, forcing it through the gem in mass, safety of doing so be damned. She compensated for the crystal's deficiencies with her own will, and honestly this was so so so dumb, who had made this piece of shit she shouldn't have to do that for something like this. As the less than seconds ticked past Cross felt the barrier slowly piece together around Elma, and it wasn't going to finish soon enough, it was going to slow and the tail was approaching too fast and this stupid crystal was just such a piece of crap and oh thank goodness Elma was backpedaling….. and "DONE!" Cross cried in relief, her shield finishing forming just as the dagger sharp tail reached Elma's chest.

Between Elma's red armor and the ether shield the physical blow did little but knock Elma backward, though the force was still great enough that only the woman's skill kept her balanced and on her feet. As the blow connected there was a mighty boom as the electricity stored in the grex's tail discharged, leaping into Elma's chest. It fried a hole right through her armor and scorched the skin beneath it, leaving a nasty looking burn.

Elma grunted in pain, and brought her swords slashing up cleaving through the tail in retaliation. The grex yelped some, but didn't flinch like its companion had earlier. It reeled on Elma, intent on knocking her over and shredding her with its front claws, but it presented its back to Cross, who had just slammed another grenade in, while doing so. Cross gleefully took the opportunity to launch said grenade at its back.

The force of the explosion sent it reeling forward toward Elma, who gracefully fell backward onto the ground, and then as the grex stumbled over her, she stabbed her swords upward into the creature's neck, severing its larynx. The grex wheezed a few times, then fell over dead.

Cross cautiously approached, her weapon still raised just in case. Though when she saw Elma starting to hack of part of the creature's armor she figured it definitely was dead. Holstering her rifle, Cross jogged the rest of the way. She was concerned about the nasty blow Elma had taken, though given that the other woman was now hacking off a piece of the grex, she decided it couldn't have been that bad. Still, just in case, "Hey! You okay? That looked like a nasty jolt you took. Do you want to borrow the knife?"

Elma looked up from her work and nodded. "I'm fine. I've taken worse in the past." She pointed at a segment of the grex's armor that she had cut into. "Try and get your knife in there and pry this plate off would you? My sword is to thick"

Cross was confused but complied. As she started trying to pry off the shiny bone plate she asked. "So, uh… What are we doing?"

Elma jabbed her sword into a crack on the other side of the plate Cross was trying to wedge up. "Grex armor can be polished down to a mirror finish so smooth it's usable for some industrial and military applications. It's not as good as what we can make, but it takes less effort, so for what it can be used for it's very efficient. Greneda Galactic, one of the two main weapon manufactures in the city, even uses it on some of their armor to provide protection from laser based attacks."

The two worked for a bit, finally prying the plate of off of the grex. As the moved to work on the next one, the pair paused, hearing the rumbling of an approaching vehicle. Another humvee was approaching, a man and a woman, both brown haired and wearing similar armor to Cross riding inside.

"Mam! Are you okay? Who is this?" The man asked as they pulled up within talking distance. "We saw the fight and got here as soon as we could to help out."

Elma waved. "We're fine Piers." Elma pointed at Cross "I found Cross's lifepod intact out in starfall basin. She's pretty good in a fight, though I appreciate the intention. And no need for that 'mam' stuff."

The man, Piers apparently, chuckled. "Sorry, habit."

"It's fine." Elma glanced at the Grexe's. "I assume these grexes are why the gate is closed?"

Piers's companion nodded. "They've been hanging around the west gate plane with some others recently. Frye and some other Interceptors are out hunting the pack, so hopefully we'll be able to re-open the gate soon. Until then you can use the elevator rigged up to the left of the gate to get in."

"Thanks Emily." Elma responded, and then proffered the piece of grex armor she and Cross had pried off. "You mind getting the rest of these? I'd like to get back and finish up the paperwork before nightfall, and it's already pretty late."

Piers and Emily both nodded while Emily replied enthusiastically. "Can do! Just leave it to us."

Elma smiled and nodded appreciatively. "We'll just leave our humvee outside the gate then. Its got a busted gun, so it needs to go to the Outfitters hanger once the gate is open. It's one of the ones from the Shadow Rise base camp, and there is a work order tucked into the back seat."

The pair nodded again, this time Piers replying. "Got it." He then nodded politely to Elma and Cross in turn. "Have a good evening Elma, Cross."

Cross smiled back and waved to the two as she turned to follow Elma back to their humvee. "Nice meeting the two of you."

* * *

When they finally reached the west gate after only a couple minutes drive Cross looked up in awe. She had known the wall of NLA were massive from the glimpses she had caught at a distance, but it was even more impressive up close. Cross strained her neck skyward, trying to see the top, estimating the wall stood maybe 300 feet high. And the shut gate itself was massive to, Cross estimating it being around fifty feet square. A path had been carved through the crystallized shock absorbing fluid allowing access to the gate, the materials normally spiky appearance removed, leaving only a blocky queried look in the section surrounding the gate. Three massive cranes rested atop the wall to the left of the gate, and looked like they could maybe even MOVE along the top of the wall "Wow. Thats seriously impressive. And this isn't even half as big as the White Whale was right? And there were multiple colony ships made? All in like twenty years?"

"Indeed." Elma paused to look up as well. "It's amazing what humans can do when they work together." They stood in silence for moment, Cross admiring the massive structure. Elma eventually broke the silence. Then "We should get going. And just wait until you see the inside."

"Yeah!" Cross exclaimed as she finally lowered her vision from the towering height of NLA's wall.

When she did she noticed three humanoid machines standing at attention in around the gate. As her hand unconsciously drifted to her rifle, she wondered how she could have missed them. They were massive, standing around twenty five feet tall and armed with massive versions of her own rifle. Two even had what looked like cannons mounted to their backs. "Elma" she whispered, "What are _those_?"

"Huh?" Elma asked as she followed Cross's gaze. "You mean the skells?" Elma looked at Cross's hand resting on her rifle, ready to draw it. "There's no need to worry about them, they're just piloted mechanical suits we use to lug around bigger weaponry."

Cross finally realized that she had put her hand on her gun. Of course they were safe. They were clearly guarding the city. "Yeah. Right. Sorry."

Elma looked at her quizzically. "Is something the matter?"

Cross shook her head. "I...no. Its nothing. Actually I'm not sure. I just felt weird looking at them or something. But…" Cross paused, trying to formulate what exactly was unsettling her. "You're _sure_ they're safe to pilot?"

Elma's expression went from quizzical to outright confused. "Of course. Why wouldn't they be?"

Cross gazed at the skells for a while before responding. "I don't know." She stared at the skells for a while longer before shaking her head, trying to clear the feeling of unease. "I...let's get going shall we?"

"Sure." Elma said, understanding that Cross didn't know what had caused the feeling.

The two walked over to the elevator, which seemed to have been hastily made from a construction crane and some scaffolding. Still, despite its seemingly rapid construction, it also seemed perfectly stable. Elma pulled a small handheld device out of her belt and swiped it across a holographic terminal at the base of the elevator, prompting the car to come down. After they had stepped onto the platform, Elma waved her device over another terminal, and the platform jolted upward, then continued on a steady ascent. It carried them high, maybe three quarters of the way up the wall, before it stopped and they needed to climb still _higher_ up a flight of stairs.

Once at the top, they were at a tunnel leading through the wall. And Cross realized that not only was the wall absurdly tall, it was also absurdly thick. It was maybe even thicker than it was tall! It wasn't easy to judge the height of something without a good reference, but Cross felt her estimation of three hundred feet was close, and she guessing the thickness of the wall had to be around _four_ hundred from how long the tunnel looked.

As they walked down the tunnel, Elma in the lead, Cross wondered what NLA would look like. She tried to guess; would it be dazzling, as befitting a city that had literally flown through the stars? Or perhaps gritty and utilitarian, as befitting the last bastion of a race?

When they stepped out on the platform, and Elma grandly announced, "Welcome to NLA", Cross realized that the city was neither of those. It was massive, for sure, and it was massive enough that it remained as such even in light of the towering scope of its walls. But more than anything else, it looked like a city. She could see what was clearly a downtown area in front of her, an industrial area tucked against the wall below her and to the right, and directly across the circle of the city from where she stood was a green area, a residential district composed of trees and grass and houses.

There was one area that caught her interest for her eye for its difference though. Between the residential and downtown areas was one made up of the towering building she had seen from Shadow Rise, they gleamed in the orange light of dusk, back lit beautifully by the soft blue glow of Mira's largest moon. The tallest and foremost tower had a massive display plastered on its front, glowing a darker shade of orange than the sky, a massive set of numbers reading 60% was plastered on it.

As Elma gave her time to gaze on the city, and reacquaint herself with its layout, Cross realized something about the city. "Its empty" she muttered. In more than one sense of the word she thought. Large section of the city were so incomplete she could see the scaffolding below it, with a massive basin of what was presumable more of the shock absorbing fluid at the bottom. The area between the industrial district and the residential district was completely untouched, leaving an entire fifth of the interior of NLA's wall empty. Maybe that was what the percentage on the giant tower was for? How much work was needed to complete the city? The proportions seemed about right, and it made sense, everyone could visibly see how much work was left to do.

It would make sense, given the more sobering way the city was empty. There wasn't many people. A downtown area should be bustling with activity, even, or perhaps especially, late in the evening. But there was barely any. And there was something else about the city that was niggling at her. It seemed different. Alien. Which made no sense, because she was from here, so if anything it should feel familiar.

But before she could carry that train of thought any further, Elma looked at her and sighed. "Your right. There's not many people here. It's only the crew of the White Whale, not the passengers. They were all sleeping, frozen in cryostasis in the section of the ship called the Lifehold, which was separated from the rest of the ship when we crashed. We don't know where it landed on this planet, so B.L.A.D.E's number one priority is to find it. Then we can all really start anew here."

"I'll help look. If you'll have me." Cross wasn't sure what prompted her to say that. But it felt right. Going out, exploring the world, helping everyone? That was definitely something she wanted to do.

"I. Well" Elma actually seemed taken off guard by that, Cross noted. It was kind of amusing, since she always seemed so in control. Elma grinned as she collected herself from her surprise. "Well. I had planned on asking you later, once you had settled in some. But if you're sure about this, I can talk to Commander Vandham about it when I go to do my paperwork later tonight."

Cross nodded earnestly. "I am. I can't see myself helping out any other way. And I'm not the kind of person to stand around and do nothing when people need help. I may not be able to remember my past, but I know that much about myself."

Elma extended her hand, and Cross grasped it with her own. "In that case, let me be the first to welcome you to B.L.A.D.E. You'll have to fill out some paperwork and such of course, but that can be done in the morning." Elma paused and pondered something for a moment. "Actually, if you're willing, you could join my team."

Cross almost gasped. She hadn't been expecting that. Elma seemed like a bigshot, so Cross had figured she could have anyone she wanted, or that she already had a team or something. All though….. Cross thought back to when they had arrived at Shadow Rise, where Elma had been quick to end conversation when Greg had started asking where something, or maybe someONE'S were. Was Elma's old team dead?

Cross decided if Elma didn't bring it up, she wouldn't ask. For now though: "I'd be honored."

Elma's grin broadened. "Let's get you to the barracks then. You can share with me and Lin for now, we've got some spare beds. You can get your own place later, or stay with us long term, but I'll leave that up to you."

"Alright." Cross responded. "Let's get going."

* * *

After the two had ridden down the nearby elevator, climbed down some stairs and maneuvered through some construction equipment and large containers, Elma casually greeting people as they went, they found themselves at what looked like some kind of landing platform nestled in an small open area amongst the crowd of crates and equipment. Elma explained that they were going to take a VTOL aircraft to the administrative district where the BLADE barracks were. A small crowd of people were already there, a few of which noticed their arrival and waved. One those who noticed was a young girl, maybe twelve to fourteen years old, which was surprising since Cross had figured that any children would have been with the passengers. She had black hair, cut chin length with the bangs kept out of her face with a pair of simple red hair clips, and was wearing similar clothes to the ones that Cross had woken up in, though the colors were different. A black and white sleeveless top, leather braces with fingerless gloves, grey shorts with a blue belt and thick purple boots. It made her look kind of like a mechanic, thought the effect was kind of ruined by how clean she looked, and the fact that she was excitedly bouncing their way toward them.

"Hey Elma!" The young girl called as she waved cheerily! "Who's this with you?" Not even giving Elma the chance to respond, the girl continued, though given that Elma didn't even try to answer she was expecting that. "Ohhhh! Is she one of the people you found out in Starfall Basin?" The bubble girl then turned to Cross, quickly sticking out her gloved hand for a handshake. "I'm Lin Lee Koo, mechanic and top all around fix-it gall for BLADE."

Cross accepted the handshake, somewhat perplexed. "Top mechanic? You…. you seem awful young for that." Cross grimaced. "Err. Sorry. That was a really rude way to put that."

Lin just shrugged, and waved away the comment. "It's fine. A lot of people do it, and I _am_ awful young for it, so I get the confusion. So anyway, what's your name?"

"Oh!" Cross grinned sheepishly. "Sorry! My name's Cross. I'd say what I was, but I don't actually remember anything else. I've got amnesia."

Lin's expression turned sad. "Oh thats terrible. But, I'm sure you'll remember everything eventually right?"

Cross nodded, putting on her best cheerful face. "Yeah. I've already remembered small things, you know favorite color and such. And some things feel familiar every now and then, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time."

Lin brightened up at Cross's assurance. "Oh that's a relief! So do you know what you'll be doing now?"

Elma stepped in, answering Lin's question. "Actually, Cross already decided she want's to join BLADE. She'll be staying with us for the time being, and maybe full time if she wants to."

"Ohhhh!" Lin's eyes practically sparkled in excitement. "A new roommate would be cool!" She puffed out her chest proudly. "I'll just have to cook you one of my signature dishes to convince you to stay!"

Cross chuckled. "Well, I'm always up for good food."

The all laughed, then Lin began peppering them with question about how the trip was, and Elma asking Lin about how work had been. Lin apparently mostly worked on skells, and was trying to design an attachement to let them fly. She sheepishly admitted that she had tried a test flight, but it hadn't gone very well, but fortunately the skell hadn't been to badly damage. She then hastily added that Doug, who from what Cross gathered was a friend of Elma's and Lin's go to test pilot, was also okay. Cross didn't know enough to participate in the discussion, as it quickly got technical, but it was still interesting to listen to, especially with Lin's enthusiasm for the subject.

After maybe five minutes, the two engineers were cut off by the roaring sound of the VTOL craft approached. Cross had been expecting something sleek, but it was a boxy thing, just a big rectangle with some smaller rectangles on the sides and front for the cockpit and the thrusters. The trio and the rest of the passengers climbed inside, Lin commandeering a window seat for her and Cross, intent on giving her a tour of the city as they flew overhead.

* * *

They landed on the strip across from BLADE Tower's entrance. Elma was grinning, it had been an exciting trip. Lin had taken a shine to Cross, and had pointed out all of her favorite parts of the city, doing her very best flight attendant impression the entire time. The girl had even tried to get the pilot fly them closer so that she could better point things out, necessitating Elma to remind her that there were _other_ passengers on board, who surely wanted to get back before it was too late. And beside, it was already night, and she could give Cross a much better tour in the morning.

As they exited the craft, Elma asked Lin to show Cross the way to the barracks, and informed the two that she wouldn't be back until late, so they shouldn't stay up on her account. Lin nodded, then drug Cross off, promising to cook her the best meal she had ever had. Elma just heard Cross joke that since she could only remember a handful of meals, most of which had been trail rations, the competition wasn't all that stuff, before the pair were out of hearing range.

Elma sighed. She was going to have to miss one of Lin's meals, which was always a treat. But for now, she needed answers on Cross. The young woman raised more questions the longer Elma new her.

She walked up to BLADE Tower, her pace quick, eager for answers. She swiped her PDA against the ID reader at the door, then entered once the doors whooshed open. As she stepped through, she nodded at the guards posted there, though didn't stop to say hello like she normally would. She was to close to answers know, and didn't want any delays.

Naturally, as the universe was wont to do from her experience, she had to wait for an an elevator. Both of them had conspired to be at the top floor, and took an obnoxiously long time to get down. Though the rational part of her mind realized that it hadn't actually taken the lifts longer than normal to get down it still felt like it. Fortunately by the time one did get to ground level, no one else had shown up to get on, and once she had started her ascent to the second to top floor where Nagi's office was no one else got on.

Elma hurried to Nagi's office, stepped inside, happily noted that Vandham was already here, and all but slammed the soundproofed door shut. Vandham nodded at her, while Nagi looked up, his mouth opened in surprise briefly at her sudden entrance, and then:

"We need to talk." The two of them said at the exact same time

Both Elma and Nagi, looked at each other awkwardly, while Vandam just chuckled.

Nagi recovered first. "You first" he offered, his voice as calm as always.

"Please tell me you found out something about Cross! She makes no sense!" Elma practically blurted out, not even bothering to keep her voice neutral.

Her heart started falling when she saw the two men's expressions turn grave. Vandam was the first to speak, his normally jolly and enthusiastic timbre unusually sever. "About that. We were hoping you had some information on her. We found nothing at all. She doesn't exist."

Elma fainted.


	6. Chapter 5

The BLADE barracks were nice, though they weren't really a proper barracks per say. They were more akin to apartment suites if anything. And despite their military nature and how sleek everything was, they still managed to feel homey. A well stocked kitchen and comfortable seating area stood across from an elevated room with a large table in the center were in the front of the area. Lin had explained that said table was used for mission briefings before teams went out into the fields, and that it was really a large computer-slash-hologram projector that the team leader would use to display things like mission objectives, maps and whatnot.

Then there were the four bedrooms and two bathrooms in the back. They were small, but not uncomfortably so, more of a cozy feeling. Still; there was something off about the entire place to Cross. It felt strange, not in a bad way though, it just felt really different.

The dinner Lin had cooked for had put her right at ease though; the fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and an assortment of steamed vegetables were delicious. While Cross was helping Lin prepare it all, after insisting that she wasn't going to sit back and make Lin do all the work, she had questioned why Lin was making so much; there were only two of them there and Elma had said not to expect her. Lin had just rolled her eyes and said that people had a habit of turning up out of nowhere whenever she had time to cook a big meal like she wanted to do to welcome Cross.

Cross hadn't really gotten what Lin meant by that until about ten minutes before the last of the food was done. Three people all but knocked the door down, seemingly attracted to Lin's cooking like a moth to flame.

The first was a woman, maybe a couple years younger than Elma, Cross guessed twenty eight, with short dirty blond hair, severe light grey eyes and wearing similar clothes to Lin, except that she had a rugged blue jacket on over her shirt and was wearing cargo pants instead of shorts.

The second was a young man, who look about as old as her, so probably around twenty four. That thought had made Cross pause for a while. She didn't know for sure how old she was or when her birthday was. But she had put it aside for later to observe the young man. He had short but messy light brown hair, green eyes, and a goofy grin plastered on his face. He was dressed much the same way as the woman, except in tones of green and grey instead of blue and white, and the "cargo" part of the cargo pants had been transplanted to his jacket.

The third of them was also a man, and the oldest of the lot, in his late twenties to early thirties. He had brown eyes and very close cut brown hair, and was dressed in casual looking blue pants and shirt sleeved shirt. And he was tall. Like really seemed to loom over the other two.

Lin introduced them to her as Irina, Gwen and Doug respectively, and then confirmed Cross's suspicions that he was the same Doug who was mentioned earlier. When she apologized for leaving him to clean up on his own. Doug had waved it off, demanding food in repayment, so everyone had helped out finishing up dinner.

Once it was finished, they had all sat down and eaten together, the three of them asking Cross what her story was, offering sympathies once they heard about the amnesia, and then asking her what she thought about the city so far. In response, Cross asked them what they did. It turned out that despite his work as Lin's test pilot, Doug was actually a member of the Harriers, the BLADE division responsible for taking on the planet's most dangerous inhabitants. Gwin and Irina were Interceptors, who escorted the less combat oriented groups and dealt with the more mundane creatures. Gwen was part of Irina's team, and Cross could already tell that he had a massive crush on his commander, though she was either amazingly oblivious, or didn't return it and didn't know how to let him down easily. Additionally, Gwin and Irina had apparently known Elma since Earth, having served with her in the military there.

Eventually, they had finished the meal and Gwin, Irina and Doug had left to go back to there own rooms in the barracks. Lin had heavily yawned, and headed off to her own bed after mumbling goodnight. Cross herself had stayed up a little longer, cleaning up the dishes, before retiring to one of the spare rooms herself.

Everyone had been really nice. Well, Irina had been as severe and no-nonsense as her eyes, but it managed to not come across as rude, merely amusingly sarcastic, usually at Gwin's expense. Gwin himself was frankly adorable, and had an earnestness to him, sort of like a somewhat annoying younger brother. In contrast Doug had a kind of teasing older brother vibe to him.

Eventually, all the thinking about the three of them caused Cross to realize that she couldn't remember her own family. She teared up some upon the realization. She knew that she had loved them, but she couldn't remember anything about them. Did she have brothers? Sisters? What had her parents been like? Or her grandparents? Had any of them made it aboard the White Whale? Where they waiting in the lifehold? Or had they died back on earth?

As the tears started flowing freely Cross wiped her eyes. This wasn't the time. It wasn't as bad as it could be. She had made some friends already here. And she did seem to be slowly remembering things, so it was only a matter of time before she remembered her family. Forcing herself to thinking similar comforting thoughts, Cross slowly managed to drift to sleep.

* * *

In her dreams, Cross drifted over an unfamiliar land. In front of her dazzling cities made of intricately carved stone shone beautiful rosy shades as they hovered high in the sky, supported by thin air. They were the most beautiful buildings she had seen in her life. Amongst the cities floated massive metal rings, their purpose unknown to her, but the mysterious sigils inscribed on their surfaces and their sheer size caused her to wonder in awe.

And below her the land burned, and bucked, and writhed. Fires shot across the planes, and the ground roiled as earthquakes tore forests apart. She could feel it as scores of creatures died in droves as the flames consumed them, and as they fall down a growing abyss that slashed along the right coast of the lands length. To the ever growing chasm's right mountains were violently jutted into the air, and to her far left the same happened on a monumental scale, the peaks soaring up to just below the heights where the cities drifted.

As her gaze returned to the floating cities and the rings, Cross could no longer view them as beautiful or wonderful. The gentle pinks of the cities' stone instead seemed to be the red of blood and flame and death, and the mighty rings no longer inspired awe but dread.

So Cross ended them. The cities and rings came crashing down, broken, abandoned, destroyed. The torment of the land ended, but the scars would forever remain. The once green land topped with pink buildings was now only shades of brown.

Cross vowed things would never get this bad again.

* * *

It dreaded sleep. With sleep came the Voice, which commanded It to destroy and kill. It had no issue with doing such when such actions were necessary, but the Voice commanded the destruction of all life. Everything that was unlike It was to be destroyed. And there was nothing like It on this world. It was alone. Unique. And so every time It feel to sleep it was urged, commanded, required, to seek the destruction of everything around It.

There was relief from the Voice in that It did not often require sleep, that the Voice had no presence in the waking world, and that the power of the Voice was not strong, it was a needling command, something able to be resisted with nary an effort.

These reliefs did not cause the fear the Voice caused to lessen, for the source of the fear was in the omnipresence of the Voice's call. Whenever it slept, for the entire duration of It's slumber, the Voice was there to. It always worried that one day It would slip, and that upon waking It would demolish what It had cared for for so long.

But tonight It was tired, and so resigned Itself to Its ever present dreams of the Voice, that had commanded It to destroy every single time It had slept for as long as It had lived.

* * *

Sleep was peaceful. It heard no Voice commanding it in the Voice's muted terrible majesty. It instead heard the gentle sounds of a creature sleeping. The world was bright and sterile on the surface, seemingly free of the omnipresent life that was its home. But it could still taste the presence of other life nearby, their beacons of ether visible to it even through the walls. And even though this place was strange, and new, and small, it felt comforting as well.

It then dreamed of people calling a Name to It. They were nothing like the cruel commands of the Voice, their shouts were joyous, greeting, loving, and they all seemed so wonderfully familiar. It wondered at this, realizing that this Name must be It's name. It could not remember ever having a Name, nor could It hear what the Name was that was being called. But It new this Name was It's Name. And that was enough for It.

* * *

Elma awoke immediately after hitting the ground. She groaned internally. Really. It was just shock. Vandham and Nagi didn't need to look so concerned.

She picked herself on, and carried on, desperate to pretend that had never happened. "Nagi. Please tell me this is some sort of stupid joke Vandham cooked up. Cross can't NOT be in the ship's registry."

Nagi shook his head sadly. "She isnt. We checked the names of all the crewmembers and everyone who is in the life hold. Twenty four had a name that could potentially match Cross, though only one of those actually bore the name directly." Nagi held up a print out of twenty four people's faces. None looked like Cross. He then pulled out the print of the picture of Cross Elma had sent him and pointed at it. "None of the twenty four looked remotely like the picture you sent from Shadow Rise base camp."

Nagi stopped speaking, and Vandham took over. "Thinking maybe it was just a nickname, I then got some of the tech guys to port the facial recognition software from the security systems to the master registry, and ran that picture. No matches came up." Vandham held up his own print off of pictures, though there were only ten on this one. "These are the closest we got."

Elma squinted. One or two were close, but were still certainly wrong. Maybe they could have passed for her at a distance, but not up close. "These aren't her."

Nagi nodded. "Indeed. And nine of those pictures come from people currently in the life hold. The tenth, a young woman name Emily, is already accounted for.

Vandham scratched his head and sighed. "So yeah. We were really hoping you had some more info on her. Or that you were pulling a prank. Or something."

Elma looked down at the floor. What did this even mean? Cross didn't exist? How could Cross possibly not be in the registry? "I don't know what's going on anymore. But no matter what we decide to do now, we need to inform Chausson. He needs to know about this."

"Agreed." Nagi reached for his PDA and sent a message to Chausson. It dinged in response a few seconds later. "The Director General should be here in a few minutes. Seems he was working late again."

Elma blinked in confusion. Director General? Where had that come from?

Vandham apparently caught her look of confusion. "He renamed his title a few days ago when the interim mayor thing we set up expired. Frankly, as much as it galls me, we don't have the time to deal with an election now. Maurice is the best man for the job of running this place."

"I suppose it make sense." Elma sighed mournfully. "I just wish it wasn't necessary." Elective governments were, in her opinion, a good thing. They kept the people in power aware of the fragility of said power. Well, they did when they worked, but no system was perfect. And they were certainly better than how the alternative could end up. She knew that from experience. At least Chausson wasn't the kind of man to let power go to his head. As much as he seemed to hate showing it, he really did care about what was best for everyone.

The door whooshed open as Maurice Chausson strode in then closed behind him. The sixty five year old man was dressed in his typical grey suit and red tie. His slicked back grey hair, which was only a few shades lighter than his suit, was still thick, and his face was a hard one, displaying no emotions he didn't want it to. He surveyed the room quickly as the other three rearranged themselves so the four formed a rough circle. "I imagine this is important if the three of you are all here."

Elma reached over to Nagi's desk, and grabbed the photo of Cross. "This is Cross, the young woman I found at Starfall Basin. I sent her name and picture back to Vandham and Nagi once I reached Shadow Rise Base Camp with her, since she has amnesia and could only remember her name. I was hoping that we could have some information about her past ready for her, to help her remember things. And to clear up my confusion about her. Unfortunately, after an extensive search of the White Whale's registry, Nagi and Vandham determined that no one matching her appearance was aboard the Whale. The ten closest visual matches are either accounted for, or were in the Lifehold Core. Cross, to put it bluntly, shouldn't exist"

Maurice absorbed the information, his face as unreadable as stone. "And you two are sure about your search? We really have no information on her?"

"Yeah, we're sure." Vandham replied. His voice contained a trace of anger. Elma knew the large man didn't like having his work questioned, but she wasn't worried. He might seem like a goof at times, but he knew how to keep himself under control when necessary.

Maurice nodded once, thoughtful. "Does anyone have any theories?"

Everyone sat in silence, trying to think of how this could have occurred.

Elma was the first to think of anything. "Perhaps the registry was corrupted? Or damaged in the crash?"

"Uh-uh." Vandham respond. "That was the first thing I thought of. It's clean."

Nagi offered an idea next. "Well. If she's not in the registry, perhaps it's because she never was. A stowaway perhaps? Or is she part of the project Eleonora is overseeing?"

Elma groaned at that. Eleonora's project didn't sit right with her. She understood why they were doing it, but, well, it seemed wrong. It would explain things about Cross though.

"Unfortunately the second one isn't true." Maurice said, crushing Elma's brief hope at an explanation. "I know every subject of that by heart and this young woman isn't one of them. The stowaway idea has some potential though. There was that cat after all. So why not a person?"

"Also not possible." Vandham answered. "Look, we found that cat soon after launch right?"

"Indeed." Nagi confirmed.

"Well, the only reason that cat lived is because we found it and made a secure shelter for it. The majority of the Whale wasn't secured against cosmic rays, since there was no need for it. All of the crew were going to be mim's. What's some radiation to a body like that? But something like a cat or a person would be long dead. And the few places that were insulated were impossible to hide in for the length of time needed to get through the whole journey. And she can't have got a mim, because that entire process was guarded so tightly it made Fort Knox look like a place you could just stroll into. And everyone who got a mim was automatically put into the registry as that happened."

"So to confirm, she can't be a stowaway, because that would require her to now be dead due to the impossibility of surviving without being a mim, and she can't have one, since the security on that was to tight?" Maurice asked.

"Yah. Thats pretty much how it is." Vandham declared resolutely.

Everyone went back to silence, trying to think of any other explanation. After a few minutes, Elma offered another. "Well. If we are all convinced she isn't from our ship, could she be from another colony ship? The escape pods and crew uniforms don't differ between ships. Those were all made in the same place."

Nagi clasped his hands, and rested his chin on them contemplatively. "It is astronomically unlikely. While we don't have any long range sensors now, since none were on the habitat portion of the ship, we did have them before we got shot down. We should have seen something."

Elma sighed again. He was right. "I suppose that's true. Though I cannot think of any other possible way for her to be here. Can any of you?"

The three men chorused negatives, and Elma continued. "Well, it sounds to me that the most likely explanations, however ludicrous, are that she is either from another ship, or that she DID somehow stowaway and live. What was that saying from that detective series? 'When the impossible is eliminated what remains must be true'?"

"Essentially." Maurice turned to look at Elma directly. "So now that we have determined that we know nothing about where she came from, other than two ludicrously unlikely explanations, we need to decide what to do with her, since no matter how unlikely, she is in fact here. You've spent time with her Elma. What do you think?"

"I…" Elma paused. What did she think? So many things about Cross were strange. And it felt wrong to have someone who they knew so little, someone so impossible running around free. Their situation was not one that allowed for loose variables, to much was at stake. But everything about Cross seemed so genuine. Elma truly believed that she couldn't remember her past. And her confession about wanting to help she had made when they had entered the city. What she had said about not being the kind of person to just stand by and do nothing when things were bad. That had been earnest. Something said from the heart in the spur of the moment. "Regardless of where she came from, I trust her. I don't trust the _situation_ around her, but I do trust _her_ as a person. I offered her a spot in BLADE and on my team back when I thought I was going to find out who she was. I think the best idea for now would to be just continue with that. Let me watch over her, and hope time restores her memories."

Nagi and Vandham looked at her with surprise written all over their faces. Maurice, par for the course, showed nothing. Naturally, it was Vandham who actually said something. "YOU offered her a spot? What did she do? Take down a milliasour?"

Elma just rolled her eyes at the exaggeration. "Lepyx actually. And three Grexes. And a bunch of blattas, vespers, and suids. She's good. Very good. I'd have pegged her as military, if not for the impossibilities surrounding her. And she wasn't using weapons she was accustomed to. She's clearly fought before, she had the stance of a fighter and new her way around a knife and rifle. But there was a hesitance with them. She's used to using something else. But she's adaptable, and brave, and one of the best ether users I have ever seen."

"Wait wait." Vandham shook his hands. "Clarify that last one. Best ether users you've _ever_ seen? As in your _entire_ life?"

"Yes. I wouldn't say the very best, but she's up there. And she the best I've seen in a long time. She picked up how to use the focus in my utility knife in no time, and then complained that it was crappy focus."

"You have a basic Sakuraba model, yes?" Nagi asked. When Elma nodded an affirmative he continued. "While they are certainly not as good a custom job, Sakuraba's massed produced foci are fine. I've never experienced any issue."

"Neither have I." Elma looked around, catching everyone's attention. "I checked the knife while we were driving, I thought maybe the gem was damaged. It was in fine shape. But she was serious with her complaints about it. She talked about it like an expert does. I recognized the confidence in her voice. I've heard it from Lin when she talks about skells, or you," she pointed at Vandham, "when you talk about machinery," her finger moved toward Nagi, "Or you about swords." Elma lowed her arm, and paused for emphasis. "She had the voice of someone who is absolutely sure about a subject when she talked about it. More than her combat skills, I'm thinking this was what she really did."

Maurice actually looked a little confused. Maybe. Shards it was so hard to tell with him. Vandham just looked outright confused. But Nagi, Nagi seemed to get what she was going at. "You're suggesting she was researching ether. And was a prodigy at it. A Newton or an Einstein or a Hawking of the field. Or comparatively at least, since they were working in developed fields and hers was effectively brand new. She would have had to be from another ship then, we would have known if we had anyone like that, but that was one of our best theories anyway."

Yep. He got it. "Precisely. Humanity hasn't had ether technology for more than maybe fifty years. It's in its infancy, and even before Earth was destroyed there wasn't many people working on it."

Maurice interjected before she could continue "Hold up. If she's as skilled as you say, we should have heard about her. I can understand keeping someone of her skill secret before we knew about the threat to Earth, but afterwards? Why?"

It was Nagi who answered. "Why not. We all know, better than most, that Project Exodus wasn't perfectly fair. That was regrettably inevitable. Who's to say another country didn't keep her secret to give themselves a leg up on being the people whose culture would preserve humanity. It's deplorable, but can we really kid ourselves into believing people wouldn't have done it?"

The room fell into a depressive silence. It was true. People would have done it. Desperation drove people to do cruel things. Elma didn't think Cross personally would have done it, the young woman was much to sincere about her helping people statement, but she would never of had to know she was being kept secret.

"Well. If you think she'll share what she knows, I'm all for it." Vandham declared. "I've got no patience for the stuff, but I understand how useful it can be."

"I'm sure she will. She seemed personally affronted by the quality of the focus, so I'm confident she'd want to fix it."

Maurice cleared his throat, catching everyone's attention. "Well. That sounds final then. Elma will keep an eye on our mystery woman and keep us up to date. I assume I don't need to remind you all how vital it is none of this leaves the four of us?" Elma, Nagi and Vandham nodded. "Good. In that case, it's late, and we should get to bed."

Everyone bid each other pleasantries and headed off to their respective sleeping quarters. Elma was, satisfied she supposed, with how things had went. They may not have more than theories, but they knew the score, and had a plan now. Now it was just wait and see and hope something else ridiculous didn't happen.

 **Authors Note: After this week, I will be resuming the every other Friday update schedule.**


	7. Chapter 6

Cross woke the next morning to discover that someone had set out a pair of basic casual clothes for her, a pair of cargo pants and a short sleeved shirt made out of a fabric she couldn't identify. After changing out of her dirty blood splattered armor; the clothes fit well enough, but she was definitely going to by some of her own when she had the chance; she walked into the kitchen where she found Lin, who was wearing an outfit similar to yesterdays, had made some breakfast. It wasn't as impressive a spread as last nights meal, but the waffles were nice and fluffy so Cross wasn't exactly about to complain. Elma had apparently made it back late last night judging by her yawn when she joined them for the meal, and was wearing what Cross assumed to be a spare set of armor given that the last time Cross had seen the woman's armor it had a gaping hole in the chest, and apologized for not having been there for dinner.

After assuring her that it was fine, Cross ate her breakfast in a contemplative mood while Lin and Elma chatted, although Cross didn't pay attention to what they were saying. What had that dream meant? Had that been from her past? How could she have destroyed so many cities? She supposed it may have been metaphorical, but it had felt so real. Like she really had been there and done that. Maybe Elma knew something about it. It wouldn't hurt to ask, Cross supposed. "Elma? Did Earth have any floating cities?"

Elma and Lin looked at her, and from there expressions, Cross already knew the answer. "There weren't any, no." Elma confirmed. "Why do you ask?"

"Ahhh…." Cross wasn't sure she wanted to talk about the whole 'destroying everything' aspect of her dream until she knew more about what that had all been about. "I just had a dream last night. There were these floating cities carved from pink stone in it. I was wondering if it might have been a memory from back on Earth."

Lin shook her head. "Nothing like that no. Sounds cool though! Like something out of a fantasy novel!"

Elma looked Cross in the eyes, concern present in her face. "I can understand wanting your memories back, but sometimes a dream is just a dream. Don't latch onto them as replacements. But at the same time, don't be afraid to ask if what you see in them might have happened."

"Yeah. Thanks." Cross took another bite from her waffles. "So, how'd the paperwork go Elma?"

Cross thought she saw Elma stiffen slightly before responding. But it was so brief she wasn't sure if it had actually happened, so she just ignored it. It was probably just classified stuff that was none of her business if it was anything.

"It went fine. I even got your entry paperwork through. All you need to do is sign a form and pick a division, and you'll be an official member of BLADE."

Cross nodded, and then finished off her waffles before replying. "Thanks! Where do I need to go to sign?"

Elma chuckled, and pulled out her little handheld device she had used to operate the elevators the other day. She pressed a few buttons, causing a holographic screen to pop up, tapped the screen a few times and then handed it and a small pencil sized stick to Cross. "You can sign right here actually. The list of divisions are up top with brief description of what they do. Once you've picked which one you want, tap the box next to its name, then scroll down to the bottom and sign your name. Don't get too hung up on what division you join though. You can take jobs from any speciality, so the division is more for helping other people know what you're best at if they are looking for help. You are expected to at least concentrate on your chosen division's jobs though."

Cross nodded, and began perusing the divisions, using her finger to manipulate the screen like she had just seen Elma do. The holographic screen was kind of weird, it made a tingling sensation on her finger when she touched it, but it worked well enough.

After some thought, during which time Elma and Lin and cleaned up the table, Cross was down to two divisions. The Pathfinders, who were the main explorers, and who she had met some of while at Shadow Rise base camp, and the Interceptors, like Irina and Gwen, who protected the other groups while they were outside of NLA. Sighing in defeat, both seemed to fit he well, Cross set the device down on the table and spun it. Hologram toward her for Interceptor, and away for Pathfinder.

It spun for a bit, before ending up in between. Cross rolled her eyes. "Oh come on!"

Lin peered over her shoulder. "Whats wrong?"

"I couldn't make up my mind between two divisions, so I spun Elma's thing. Away from me for Pathfinders, and toward for Interceptors."

Lin nodded, her face in a mock serious expression. "Well then! I have the perfect solution. I outfitted my PDA to measure angles and the like, helpful when I'm working on Skells and need to get the alignment juuuust right." Lin pulled out her, PDA they were apparently called, and pointed it at Elma's. After punching some buttons, sheet of light spat out and swept over the table. In a completely over the top voice, Lin announced. "Drummm roll please! The data is in! And it looks like you are aaaaaaaaaaaaan Interceptor."

Cross laughed, and picked Elma's PDA back up. "Thanks Lin." She quickly touched the box next to the Interceptor logo, scrolled to the bottom, picked up the stick elma had given her, and signed her name.

"Welcome aboard Cross." Elma said. "I'm happy to be the first to get the chance to say so." She then turned to Lin. "Do you mind showing Cross around town and helping her pick up some new weapons? She felt like the rifle and knife I loaned her wasn't her usual style. I'd go myself, but I have to get my armor repaired."

Lin nodded enthusiastically. "I'd love to! I didn't get to give her a proper tour at all yesterday."

"Wait. How am I going to afford anything? I don't have any money." Cross asked.

"It's fine. I've deposited enough from my account to yours to get you started." Elma answered. Cross was about to protest, but Elma raised her hand and shook it scoldingly. "I insist. I have plenty of money. Just consider it… your signing bonus."

"Thanks! I'll be sure to make it up to you somehow!" Cross said earnestly.

Elma nodded. "I'm sure you will." She looked around the room, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. "I guess the only other thing to talk about before we all head out is where you want to stay."

Cross smiled. "I'd like to take you up on that offer to stay with you two." She punched Lin lightly in the shoulder. "It look's like someone's bribe of food was a success."

Lin gave a goofy grin. "Yesssss! All according to plan. Muhahahaha!"

Elma just rolled her eyes at the thirteen year old's fake evil laughter. "We'll be happy to have you." She turned toward the door and started walking. "Have a good day you two."

Cross and Lin chorused. "Yes mam!" They then blinked looked at each other, and broke down laughing.

Elma laughed, and walked out the door.

* * *

Lin had given Cross a whirlwind tour of the city, showing everything there was to see. It had gone by so fast, she wasn't sure she had memorized everything, though she felt confident she had managed to get the important bits down.

They had gone through the administrative district first. The east gate out of the city was to the immediate right of the entrance to the barracks, which Cross now realized seemed to be built into the wall. The mission console, the best place to look for jobs was down the street to the left, while Division Drive, where most of the BLADE divisions had their headquarters, was past the gate to right, and Armory Ally, the only place to get new weapons and armor was across from the road to the gate. At the end of Division Drive Lin had showed her the elevators to the lower level of the admin district, which was where the skell maintenance bay was held, where the restricted hanger was, and where the roads to the rest of the city where. They hadn't opted to take those, since the walk would be much too long, and instead walked through Armory Ally to the front of BLADE tower, the main government building.

From there they had taken a VTOL craft to the residential district, where Lin had showed her around Deliverance Park, which Cross suspected she would be spending a good amount of time relaxing in, even if there was construction going on across the street to the east expanding the city. Then there were the sports fields past some houses to the south. Cross realized she probably hadn't played much sports, since she didn't recognize most of them. Lin had then pointed at large stone tower poking up over the houses, and said that they could go see the cathedral if Cross wanted to, but that it was really easy to find, since it was visible from everywhere in the residential district. Cross had said she'd pass, so the two headed back to the VTOL craft stop near Deliverance Park.

Next they had flown to the industrial district. They hadn't bothered to get off when the VTOL had landed to pick up more passengers, since the layout was simple and Lin could easily point out all the major places from the air. The Outfitters test hangar was an absolutely massive complex, taking up almost the entire southern third of the area and was were Lin herself normally worked. North from it, in the middle third of the area was the integrated production plant, which Lin explained was where much of the bulk good where made in the city, and the recycling center. Between the two buildings, toward the center of a city, was a restaurant called the Repenta Diner. The northern third of the district was almost completely comprised of storage warehouses and shipping crates and the like.

Then it was time for the commercial district. Cross was pretty sure she had forgotten where things were specifically there. It was full of shops and restaurants, selling everything imaginable, and Cross was sure she hadn't had a lot of the foods that were on display. She vowed to work her way through all of them, though it would be awful tempting to just stick to the small cafe Lin had taken them to for lunch. Cross had also picked up some more casual clothes to wear before they left. Some more pairs of pants, a couple pairs of shorts, the appropriate undergarments, and an assortment of shirts and a nice jacket.

Last, it was finally time for what Cross had been waiting for, to head back to Armory Ally and pick up some new gear. The main armor and weapons shop took most of the north side of the street, and was divided into four areas. One contained weapons meant for skells, and videos showing the weapons used in a firing range, since testing them out for yourself was obviously impractical. Not having a skell, and still being a bit freaked out over them, Cross skipped that section. The next was where the ground armor was sold, and it also had some changing rooms. Cross and Lin split up here, the young girl saying she had been meaning to get some new armor for herself. As she started looking around, Cross realized that despite the seemingly large amount of money Elma had given her, she wasn't going to be able to afford a lot of what was in here. The higher end gear was crazy expensive, so she was going to have to settle for the more basic stuff. She eventually got a set of goggles and a bracer-glove combination thing for her left arm. The goggles were supposed to have a basic computer in them that would assisting with targeting her attack, and the bracer-glove would apparently stiffen a little if the arm was held in place long enough, providing some extra stability when firing a gun. The outer layer was also composed of an alloy which apparently took laser shots well. Cross wasn't sure of the details, the description said something about energy dispersal, but she figured it could be a helpful thing to have. Who knew on this planet. After paying for her purchases and slipping them on, she went off buy what she had really come here for, new weapons.

The third section contained racks of weapons of all kinds. From bulky two handed blades to knives and from rifles like the one she was currently using to sets of strange floating things that followed mental commands, the area had so many weapons Cross was sure she'd find one that felt natural to her. After getting the go-ahead from an attendant to take on of everything to firing ranges and sparring areas the comprised the fourth section of the store, Cross went a picked up one of every single style and model of weapon in stock.

After taking a few trips to one of the firing ranges, Cross started working her way through the guns. The bulky ray guns were thrown out quickly. She liked being agile on her feat and they were much to heavy. She decided to toss away the shields and gatling guns on the same premise. Clearly not for her. The drones were the next to get the axe, they were neat, but she clearly had no experience with them prior to her memory loss, her aim had been abysmal compared to what she had done with her borrowed assault rifle. The sniper rifles were up next up next and were quickly dismissed. They hadn't been bad, she was accurate enough with them, but the recoil had been massive, and she clearly didn't know how to handle it, seeing as how she kept getting knocked on her rear whenever she tried to fire them. Then it was down to a pair of pistols and the assault rifles. It had taken her some time and many shattered paper targets, but she eventually decided she prefered the rifle better. She was about as accurate with each, but she could draw her melee weapon at the same time as she stowed the rifle, which would be important since she knew there was no way she'd be able to switch weapons as fluidly as Elma did. And, she admitted to herself, she may have gotten slightly attached to making things blow up with the assault rifles grenade launcher.

Then she realized she still had to choose between the four models of assault rifles for sale. Two of which apparently fired fired short bursts of lasers instead of bullets. After some more test firing, she settled on a slightly more sophisticated version of the rifle Elma had handed her. The laser shots had been cool, but she kept compensating for the fact the a physical bullet would fall. Cross vowed to come back to those models that once she had a nice long stretch to work that habit out of her system, since shooting lasers at things seemed really useful. Still, as satisfied as she was in the end with her new rifle, Cross felt that what she really wanted was something else. Something not on display.

She shoved the feeling aside to concentrate on the melee weapons. Having already decided no on shields, Cross decided to also pass on the knife, she'd been using one for a while, and hadn't liked it, though she would probably keep the on she had in her pack to make use of its ether focus. As shittily made as it was, the effects were useful. She spent some time swinging around the various models of two handed swords and the polearms, and even found herself falling into some basic forms with them. They weren't bad, but she felt there had to be something better.

Shrugging, Cross moved onto the next set, a trio of weapons advertised as "photon sabers". Cross wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but as she pulled the first from its strange 'v' shaped shaped sheath a shining palm width blade of light whooshed out and memories rushed back and it felt so right.

* * *

Cross was nine and she stood in front of a wall of swords. Not literally of course, but the painted metal wall could barely be seen behind the various weapons, primarily swords, that adorned it. She gazed at them in wonder. She had heard stories about these, about the adventures her grandfather had used them in. She could even identify some of them, having begged for details at the grandest parts of her grandfather's tales, asking him to describe the battles down to the smallest detail.

She reached out, her small hand drawing close to one of the swords hung lower on the wall. Here, for example, was the sword he had been wielding when he had first met her grandmother. She walked along, almost touching the hilts she passed but not quite managing to. These swords represented what she wanted to do. Her grandfather had gone out into the world and helped people. He'd been a hero. "I want to be a hero to." Cross muttered.

She jumped in fright, as voice called out to her from the entrance to the room. "Being a hero is a lot of work."

Cross turned, recovering from her fright, to see her grandfather standing there in the doorway. His hair, which he kept long enough to reach just past his shoulders was grey with age, and he wore a simple red tunic, black cloak, and black pants. Despite his years, he carried himself well, not being one to let age slow him down. His tanned face was stern, and Cross knew why. "Grandfather! I.. I'm sorry, I know I'm not supposed to come in here unsupervised." She said in a panic, barely holding back tears. She respected her grandfather very much and didn't want him to be disappointed in her.

He walked over her, knelt down, rested his hand on her right shoulder, looked her in the eyes and smiled. "It's fine. Your siblings and cousins might not understand how dangerous my swords are, and wouldn't treat them with respect. But I know you understand. You always hang onto every word of my stories."

Cross sniffled. "Thank you for not being mad."

Her grandfather grinned. "With you? Not for this. Now, what's this about wanting to be a hero?"

"Well, I'd..." Cross took a deep breath. She'd tried bringing up her dream with her father, but he'd just said that she was only nine, that she was still much too young to decide what she wanted to do with her life, especially if it was something as dangerous as learning to use a sword like her grandfather. "I'd like to be a hero like you were when you were younger. But I know father won't let me. He says I'm to young to decide what I want to do."

Her grandfather stood up and walked over to the far end of the room. "Well. You're father certainly knew what

wanted to do when he was your age. So if he objects, I'll just give him grief for all the grief he gave me back then." He spun around, and tossed a small simple wooden sword her way. Cross barely managed to catch it, and held it tightly against her chest with both hands.

Her grandfather then picked up another practice sword in his own hand, one appropriately sized for his larger frame. "Well come on them. Grip the hilt with your right hand. Let's spar."

Cross's grin took up her entire face. She'd never been more excited in her life. She was finally going to learn how to be a hero.

* * *

Cross was fifteen. She'd sparred with her grandfather weakly for the past six years, and liked to think she'd gotten pretty good. The fact that she still hadn't beaten her grandfather would have upset her if he wasn't a famous hero. As it was, she felt thrilled just to be able to learn from him.

Today, as they met for their weekly sparring session, her grandfather held out a metal sword hilt to her. She'd long since graduated to using real swords, and had used most of her grandfather's extensive collection, but had never used this one. It was very strange looking at first glance, having no blade and an oversized cross guard. But Cross knew what it was. "Are you sure grandfather?"

He nodded solemnly. "These are dangerous, to much so to train a beginner on. As for once you're not a beginner; well, then they are still too dangerous, because you've gotten used to the weight of a physical sword." He swept his arm across the swords lining the wall. "But you've learned how to instinctively compensate for blades of different weights and balances. Now you're ready for one that doesn't weigh anything. I think it will suit you well. Despite your training you still aren't the strongest, you can't get as much power behind your attacks as I could when I was young. And you prefer being light on your feet, making sure you're opponent never gets a clean hit on you. The lightblades are perfect for that. They don't need powerful swings behind them to hurt, and they barely weigh anything." He picked up a sword of his own and settled into a defensive stance. "Come on then. Turn it on."

Cross nodded, and flicked the switch at the base of the crossguard. A thick blade of blue light sprung up from the top. She gave it a few careful practice springs to adjust to the lack of weight in the blade, then leapt at her grandfather and unleashed a flurry of attacks.

* * *

This was it. Cross was sure. This was the weapon for her. She remembered that since that day when she was fifteen she'd stuck to using these types of swords when she was at all able. As her grandfather had said, they were perfect for her, letting her score dangerous hits without much strength behind the blow and being so light that dodging out of the way was a simple matter.

She grinned, and instantly launched into a blistering series of strikes, her body graceful contorting to allow her sword to come at her imagined foe from all angles. She kept at it, the pale bluish-green blade she held becoming nothing but a blur as she swung it through the air faster and faster. She started laughing excitedly. This was exhilarating! So much better than that stupid little knife!

Finally she stopped her assault, turning of the blade and re-sheathing it, only to hear a storm of clapping. She turned around to see that a crowd of other shoppers had gathered around to watch her. Cross blushed a little. Just how long had she been going, that this many people had been able to gather around to watch?

As she looked over the crowd, she noticed Lin off at one side, clapping louder than the rest of the shoppers. And the tall guy from dinner yesterday, Doug, was there too, though he was wearing some heavy looking blue and grey colored armor with a massive ray gun strapped to his back and a photon saber of his own at his waist instead of the casual clothes he was in yesterday. Cross walked over to them, not sure what to say.

Fortunately for her, Lin wanted the first word anyway. "Woooo! Cross, that was AMAZING! Where did you learn to do that!"

Cross scratched her head, "Well, from my grandfather actually. He was a master swordsman."

Doug smiled. "That must mean you remembered something about your past then! Good for you!"

"Oh! Cross! You should totally spar with Doug! He uses a photon saber too!" Lin suggested, clearly very excited at the prospect of seeing her test pilot and her roommate go at it.

"What? Why?" Doug asked, clearly not as enthusiastic about the idea.

"Awww come on. I bet you're just worried she's gonna beat you." Lin baited.

Doug gaped and spluttered. "I...what...no. Ok fine then. If that's how you're going to be about this I'll do it." Lin apparently knew exactly how to get under his skin. He turned away from the thirteen year old to face Cross. "You up for it?"

Cross thought about it briefly. She had only just picked it up, and wasn't sure if she had remembered all of her old skills. But it would be a good way to test herself, and if Doug was even half as skilled as Lin seemed to consider him, then they'd be no danger to each other with the deadly weapons. "I'm game. First hit?"

Doug nodded and began to take off his ray gun. "That's good with me."

Cross walked back out to the middle of the melee weapon practice ring she'd been using. Doug followed her, "The usual bet Lin?" He asked as he walked, then stopped once he was about twenty feet from her.

"Winner buys the loser drinks? Sounds good to me." Lin answered.

"Hey! What about me? I'm the one fighting here." Cross called out. Really, how was that fair that she'd end up doing all the work and Lin would get the reward?

Doug grinned. "I'll buy you both drinks." He drew own photon saber, a thinner blade than Cross's. "On three?"

"On three." Cross agreed, drawing and reigniting her own sword.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

Once they both said three, Cross sprang forward. Doug was taller than her, and thus had better reach than she did. It was basic technique to close so that he couldn't bring that to bear and would instead be hampered by her closer positioning.

Doug proved himself by not letting her do so. He brought his blade slashing toward her so quickly that she was forced to dive sideways rather than parry. She flicked her sword off as she tumbled to the ground, then back on as she sprang to her feat. No sense in risking it injuring her during the tumble.

As she returned to her feat, Doug was already there, swinging away again. His strikes were well placed and quick, but Cross was able to fend them off without to much trouble. But he was relentless and didn't let up enough for her to think of counter attacking. If he kept this up he could win by just tiring her out since Cross was willing to bet she had less endurance than he did. It was a smart strategy against someone whose capabilities you didn't know.

As Doug's assault continued, Cross thought back to one of the first lessons her grandfather had taught her. "Emotions have their place in a fight. Rage, fear, love, they can all be a source of strength. But the way I learned how to fight, and the way I am going to teach you, is one of control. Emotions can also cloud your vision, make you miss things. They can divert your attention. Instead, keep yourself calm. If your heart is serene in combat, you can focus all of your attention on the fight. With enough training you'll be able to pick up on your opponents patterns, and figure out a way to use them."

Cross took a calming breath between parries, settling herself into the flow of battle, and focused her attention on how Doug was attacking. To his credit, Cross couldn't see any patterns to where his attacks were coming from as they slowly circled each other, blades flashing constantly. He was skilled enough to realize that settling into a routine of attacks gave the opponent the chance to figure out that pattern and then use that knowledge against you. To get out of this, Cross realized, she was going to have to do something a little drastic.

The one thing Doug did have pattern for was his speed. He swung his blade at a fast but steady pace, the strikes coming just fast enough to force Cross to remain on the defensive, and not a moment faster. She could use this.

Doug's blade came whizzing toward her once again, this time from the side, forcing her bring her sword vertical to parry. Perfect. She did as he expected, but just before their blades made contact, she toggled her's on and off. As Doug's blade swung into the space her's had just occupied, it came on again, ricocheting Doug's up off of her extending blade. It was a minor disturbance, but enough to distract him sufficiently so that she could dodge with her body, and take a half step in closer to him.

Now it was her turn to attack. Her strikes flashed toward Doug faster than his had come at her, leaving him less able to block. He was good though, and it would take time to break his guard.

But he didn't give her the chance. On her next attack, after she had committed but before their blades locked once again, he swung his leg out at her, going for a trip. She swore internally. Curse his size. She couldn't have done the same to him, he had too much mass on her. She was going to have to dodge. Cross hastily sprung backwards, and Doug did the same. She briefly wondered what he was doing, before she felt the ether around them swirl and coalesce in his blade.

, she thought as she readied her sword to defend against whatever he was doing and readied herself to throw herself out of harm's way in case she couldn't block it.

Doug, as quick as ever, raised his sword above his head in both hands, and then swung it toward her. As the blade swung, the coalesced ether flooded into the swords blade, lengthening it out to more than five times its normal length, long enough that it could now hit Cross. She might be able to block it, but she didn't have the time to figure out what else Doug had done to the photon saber other than extend its length. Better to just dodge it.

Noticing that Doug's swing was coming down just slightly left of her center Cross made a diving roll to the right, wanting to put as much distance between her and the attack as possible. While her dive completed, she realized that Doug hadn't stopped channeling ether into his sword. Oh dear. This was going to be bad wasn't it?

As she started coming to a stand, she saw Doug finishing an upward slash into thin air, his sword leaving a glowing trail in its wake, which when combined with a strike trail he had apparently already made, left a large glowing x in the air.

Cross thought, impressed by the tactic. As she finished her thought and her stand, Doug finished his slash, and the glowing X lurched into motion, its side connecting with her almost as soon as it had a started moving. Fortunately it barely hurt.

Cross flicked her sword off and sheathed it, raising her hands in defeat. "I presume that last one would hurt a lot worse than just a sting had you not held back on it?"

Doug shut of his own sword and stowed it as well. He was momentarily prevented from responding by the crowd breaking into a long applause before they dispersed to resume their shopping. "Yeah." He walked forward and offered his hand, which Cross gladly accepted. "Damn good match. That stunt you pulled with turning your blade on and off was magnificent."

Cross rolled her eyes. "It only worked because you were using a photon saber as well. There's no way it would have worked against a conventional sword."

Doug glared at her. "Oh no. Don't get all modest on me. I couldn't have kept up that attack with a conventional sword. It would have melted straight through after all those hits. You parried exceptionally well. I don't think I could have ever got a blow in on you."

"Well, if we are talking impressive, you purposely angling that second to last attack off center to lure me into dodging the direction you wanted was a brilliant move." Cross rebutted. Doug was good, and she was going to make sure he knew she thought so.

"You actually dodged further than I was expecting you to. You started preparing to jump out of the way even before I started swinging. How'd ya manage that?"

"I felt you starting to pull ether into your sword." Cross explained. "I'd love to get a look at the focus you used for that at some point by the way."

"You could sense that?" Lin asked, wonder evident in her voice.

Cross responded unsurely. Was that not normal? "Uhhh. Yes? Why?"

Doug scratched his head. "Well, I'm pretty darn good with the stuff myself, more so than most people I'd guess. And I can't do something like that."

Cross was baffled. "Really? But, isn't that like a basic skill? One of the first things you learn? I mean, I still can't remember actually learning how to use ether, but I'm pretty sure that's one of the first things you get taught. It's pretty simple."

Lin shook her head. "Nope. Not that I've ever heard of. I'll admit I'm not that good, I've only got one thing I can do reliably, but I haven't heard of anyone calling something like that 'simple.'"

Cross just shrugged. "I dunno then. I'd be happy to try and teach you guys sometime."

Doug grinned. "I'll have to take you up on that. As for the focus you asked about, you can get one from the store. They are fairly expensive, you'll probably need to take a few jobs before getting one."

"Oh!" Lin chirped. "Speaking of, I got a message from Elma earlier. She said she had a job she wanted to bring you along on. A kinda 'show you the ropes' type thing. Sorry I didn't mention it earlier, I was distracted by that sweet fight. We're supposed to meet her by the east gate when we're done shopping."

Cross scooped up her rejected pile of weapons. "Sounds good with me. Just let me go ahead and pay for my stuff and put back the things I decided not to get."

"I'll see you at the counter then! I've got to pay for my own things." Lin said as she walked off toward the front counter.

Doug began walking away himself. "I've got to head out myself. Got a job clearing some indigens out from near the grieving pillars. There gonna set up a new basecamp around there."

"Good luck!" Cross called after him. She smiled contentedly as she began cleaning up after herself. She'd had a nice tour of the city, finally remember something about her past and gotten her hands on a fantastic new weapon and some other gear. It had been a good day so far, and it was only early afternoon. If the job Elma had lined up was a good one she could even work on starting to repay the debt she owed the woman. She was a bit wary about Lin coming along, the girl was only thirteen, but she supposed Elma new Lin better than she did. If she thought Lin was up for it, Cross would trust her judgement.

 **Authors Notes: Firstly, apologies about the brief delay. I had some issues with my internet connection. I really need to get a new computer, this one has been giving me so much grief lately.**

 **Second: I couldn't find a name for those spire formations scattered around Primordia, so since by far the largest amount exist north of the Grieving Plains I decided to refer to them as the Grieving Pillars. Plus, well, I think it sounds pretty cool.**

 **Third, unlike the canon-Cross whose background is that she/he probably doesn't even exist(how could their brain get to the mim if the Life Hold core was damaged BEFORE the mim was turned on?), this Cross actually has a backstory, as evidenced by her remembering some things this chapter. As such, she isn't going to go the route of switching between classes and picking up all the arts and skills, but is instead going to be more akin to the NPC party members. Specifically, Blast Fencer/Galactic Knight+. Following the convention of keeping art names from the first Xenoblade when the affects match, Cross' unique art for the Photon Saber is Serene Heart, replacing Geolibrium.**

 **Serene Heart(TP, Aura): Grants Accuracy and Evasion up = art level. Buff tier increases when hp is under 15%. Secondary Cooldown increases Buff Tier & Duration.**

 **Fourth, this is the end of Act 1. Thank you all for your follows, fave's and review!**


	8. Section 2: Fermi Paradox - Chapter 7

On their way to the east gate in the light of the afternoon sun, Lin's jaunty gait kept her in pace with Cross's much longer strides. The young mechanic was excited, it wasn't often she got to go on missions outside NLA. Elma didn't let her tag along if she thought it was going to involve any heavy combat, which to Lin's displeasure was more often than naught.

She understood why, of course. Despite her engineering prowess, she was only thirteen years old. She got that. But still, it was boring in the city without Elma. She didn't have many people she was close to, and since there was no one close to her age around, making new friends was challenging. Even her best friend, Alexa, was over twenty, though the fellow skell maniac didn't often act like it. So it was pretty much just Elma, Doug, and Alexa that she hung out with, and she couldn't always count on them being available, since Doug and Elma were always going out on missions and Alexa frequently worked extended hours keeping the city's skells in good repair. Admittedly, Lin joined her at that whenever she could, but Elma had been adamant that despite how gifted she was as an engineer, as a thirteen year old, Lin needed to continue her education on other subjects, so that ate up a lot of what otherwise would have been her free time.

So yeah, it got boring a lot, having to stay inside the city so much. And it was only made worse that they were on a literal alien planet, with all sorts of cool stuff to see outside the city walls. But now that Elma had apparently found a job that she could come along on, it was time to relieve that boredom and go explore Mira.

Lin looked over at Cross as they neared the east gate. And it was going to be even more awesome doing it with her new roommate. Lin watched the young woman rest her hand on her new photon saber, as if reminding herself it was still there. Cross was really cool. She was almost as good as Doug with a sword, and not only just any kind of sword, a photon saber! Photon sabers were almost as cool as skells! They were basically lightsabers after all, and who didn't like lightsabers? Lin chuckled to herself, whoever was in charge of equipment naming apparently, since why else wouldn't they actually be CALLED that. It's not like copyrights exactly mattered now. But Cross also had that whole mysterious amnesiac past thing going for her, which if Lin had learned anything from watching anime other than that giant robots were infact the best thing in the world, meant that Cross's past had to be like super cool or something. Cross remembering she had learned how to use the sword from her grandfather confirmed it. Hero's always learned stuff like that from elderly masters.

And now she was going to get to go on a mission with Cross and Elma, who had her own mysterious past, even if it was of the "I don't like to talk about it" variety as opposed to Cross's "couldn't remember". Speaking of her guardian/team captain, Lin finally spotted Elma at the base of the ramp, checking the straps on some crates and a Mrk. 2 Frontier Nav probe in the back of a jeep.

Ohhh! This was gonna be big! They didn't have many vehicles suited for going around outside, so it had to be important mission if they were going to be using one. "What's with the jeep boss?" Lin called out once they got within speaking distance.

Elma turned and gave Lin and Cross a brief smile, before putting on her familiar serious face. "I'm glad you're here. Nelson's team was out exploring the southeast area of the continent, but they've missed their last two scheduled check ins. They were reporting some slight com interference last time we heard from them, so coupled with their previous reports that the local indigens weren't overly hostile or dangerous, at least not to a Skell, so command figures they just got stuck somewhere and haven't been able to radio in. We're going to go find them and offer assistance." Elma pointed at the stuff in the back of the jeep. "Along the way we're going to deliver some supplies to a Pathfinder named Myles and his team along the south side of Janpath lake, and install one of the new Frontier Nav probes at a site that got knocked down by a tyrant recently. We shouldn't need to worry about the tyrant though, they've got some Interceptor teams out scouring the area for it."

Lin noticed Cross grow confused at the last part of Elma's explanation. "Tyrant's are what we call particularly dangerous indenignes. One's who are more aggressive and powerful than typical members of their species. And Frontier Nav is a system of scanning probes that we're installing all over the planet. The first models sat above ground, but the local wildlife hasn't been taking too kindly to them, so the new model digs itself underground."

Cross looked down at Lin and smiled. "Thanks. I've got a lot to relearn still I suppose."

Lin beamed back. "Just come to me whenever you've got any questions!"

Cross chuckled warmly. "Will do." She then turned to Elma. "Are we all ready to go then?"

Elma nodded. "Indeed. I was just double checking the straps. We'll stop for dinner at the east gate base camp, then when we get to the probe installation point we'll set it up, then set up camp. We should be able to reach Nelson's last known location earlier tomorrow afternoon if we drive fast enough."

Lin broke out laughing as Cross blanched and muttered "Oh no." Elma, for her part, just looked confused.

Recovering from her laughing fit, Lin bumped Cross with her elbow. "Elma did her normal speed driving on the way back didn't she? And I bet she did it over those narrow bridges."

"Uh-hu." Cross muttered grimly.

Elma just rolled her eyes and got in the driver's seat of the jeep. "I don't understand why people always complain about that. I always have the vehicle under complete control."

Lin pushed Cross, who had started eyeing the vehicle with what looked like a sense of dread, toward it. "Its much better when she's on open ground, trust me."

Cross sighed as she got into the back seat vehicle, Lin hoping in after her. "It was yeah. I'd still prefer to just avoid it."

Elma muttered darkly under her breath as she started the jeep and drove them out passed the skells guarding the gate. Lin gazed longingly at the majestic robots as they passed. Someday she'd have a skell of her own. Someday she'd complete her parents legacy. _But for know,_ she thought as she turned to face forward, _it's time for some excitement and adventure!_

But the look on Cross's face distracted her from her excitement. She was looking back at the entrance to NLA, worry plastered over her face. "You aren't scared are you?" Lin asked, concerned. "You did brilliantly on your way back to NLA from what I heard."

Cross shook her head. "It's not that. It's just…." Cross waved her hands unsurely. "It sounds kinda dumb, but I get uneasy whenever I see a skell."

Lin's mouth dropped open. She was so confused. How could anyone be scared of skells? She realized not everyone could be as excited about them as her and Alexa, but scared of them? She knew what she had to do. "Well then. Once we get back, you'll be accompanying me to work! Me and Alexa will get you over your fears in no time!"

Cross laughed. "Thanks. I appreciate it. Maybe you can tell me about them some as we travel?"

Lin smiled. She could talk about skells forever. As the drove off, she began regaling Cross with everything there was to know about the giant robots.

* * *

About forty minutes later, the pulled up alongside the couple other vehicles parked at the the East Gate Base Camp, and joined the Reclaimers who ran the place for dinner. It was a peaceful setting, and though the views had nothing on those from Shadow Rise Base Camp, there was something comfortable about how it was set snugly up against the cliffs to the south and looked out over the rocky plains of eastern Primordia, dimly lit by the now setting sun. It reminded her a bit of home, though the cliffs were shorter and greyer, and the grass more green than the yellowish tinge she'd grown up with, and there were entirely to many moons in the sky. Elma sighed, looking up from her meal as gazed out over the still unfamiliar landscape from her perch on a small ledge about ten feet up on the cliffs behind the base camp. Maybe it wasn't so much like her home after all.

"You okay Elma?" she heard Lin's familiar voice call out from the cliff's base. She looked down and saw Lin and Cross standing there, concerned expression on their faces."

"I'm okay, just reminiscing about home a little." Elma replied.

Lin nodded understandingly, while Cross just looked a little awkward. _It must be odd_ , Elma thought, _not knowing where she's from, not knowing enough to miss it. I wonder if it might be better to forget it, than to live knowing I can never go back._ "Why don't you all come on up here? We can eat together."

Lin smiled and cheerfully scampered up the rock face, meal in hand. Cross followed more gingerly, taking her time on the climb. Once they reached the ledge Elma was on, Lin took a seat on the edge with her, while Cross found a place against cliff wall as far from the edge as she could. Lin noticed the brunette's apparent discomfort, and teasingly asked her if she was scared of heights.

Cross grumbled good naturedly that she was just scared of hitting the ground. Lin and Elma laughed, then the three dug into the deep bowls of curry the base camp staff had provided them.

Once she had finished her meal, Elma lay down, her legs still dangling off the edge. "How did your day go Cross? Find what you were looking for at the stores?"

Cross paused her meal, though it looked like she was a fan of the curry, since her bowl was already almost empty, and she had started much later than Elma had. "It was good. Lin did an excellent job showing me around town. I'm pretty sure I could manage to find my way around without getting too lost now."

Lin looked up from her food and flashed a pleased grin before resuming eating.

"I couldn't find anything I felt better suited for than the assault rifle unfortunately, though I did buy a slightly improved version than your spare."

Elma's eyebrow quirked in curiosity. "Nothing struck your fancy? That's surprising given the wide variety of guns available."

Cross shrugged. "I dunno. Everything just felt wrong some how. The rifle's not bad though. I'm getting used to it."

"And a replacement for the knife?" Elma asked, though she had seen the hilt strapped to Cross's waist earlier, and there wasn't much that could be.

The younger woman's face beamed as she answered. "A photon saber. Its perfect. I've used them since I was fifteen."

"Since you were fifteen?" Elma asked. In that case...

Cross nodded "Yeah. I remembered some fragments of my past when I turned the blade on. My grandfather was a master swordsman, he taught me since I was about nine. When I was fifteen he let me start practicing with photon sabers. Though he called them lightblades."

"I still think they should be called lightsabers" Lin muttered.

"Why?" Elma and Cross chorused.

Lin gasped. "Have you never heard of Star Wars? Geeze Elma, I know you are like super ignorant of pop culture, but having never heard of STAR WARS?"

Elma shrugged. She hadn't exactly had much time for recreation. "I'll admit the name seems familiar, but I don't know anything about it."

"What's Star Wars?" Cross asked.

"It's a movie series, and the first thing both of you are watching once we find the piece of the archives it's stored in. Or maybe sooner, if someone brought a copy with their personal stuff." Lin proclaimed. "Anyway, back to Cross's LIGHTsaber. You should have seen it Elma! Cross was amazing! Doug was there, and he and Cross had an impromptu duel."

Elma spoke up before Lin could continue, not bothering to hide the surprise on her face. "You dueled Doug? He wouldn't have even accepted unless he thought you were good."

"Yeah! And she did really well to! I'm not even upset I owe him a drink now, the fight was so cool."

Cross blushed. "It really wasn't all that great. I only had him on the defense briefly. He was in control almost the entire fight."

"Yeah, but he had to pull out all of his best tricks on you!" Lin countered. Given how impressed she seemed to have been, Elma was starting to wish she had seen the fight herself.

"Listen, if you're skilled enough to make Doug go all out on you, you have to be pretty good at it." Elma reasoned. "And I can't say I'm surprised if you've been using a sword since you were nine and were taught by an expert."

"Well, yeah. I guess I just always compare myself to my grandfather. I never even beat him once, so there's always the reminder that I'm not the best there is, and I don't like people thinking I'm better than I actually am."

Lin nodded seriously, though from the determined expression on her face, she wasn't about to let that fact stop her from being impressed. "Ok, but Doug definitely can't do that ether sensing thing you did to dodge his attack."

Elma could barely stop herself from jumping up and barraging Cross with questions. This was the perfect opportunity to try and learn more about the young woman's skill with ether. "Ether sensing?" She managed to ask calmly.

"I could feel him drawing it into his sword before he did an attack with it. He made the beam grow really long."

Elma nodded. "That's right. He has a galactic cataclysm focus."

"Is that what it's called?" Cross asked. "I'd like to get my hands on one."

"Indeed. The arm's manufactures like to give their foci impressive sounding names." Elma confirmed. "And you were able to sense him starting to charge it?"

"Yeah." Cross pulled Elma's old utility knife off of her belt. The gem began to glow ever so softly, indicting Cross was directing ether through it. "Neither of you can feel that? But you can both use ether?"

Elma shook her had negative, while Lin did the same.

Cross shook her head in amazement. "That seems so strange to me. I can't remember for sure, but I feel like this was one of the first things I learned or something like that. Like I offered Lin and Doug earlier today, I can try and teach you sometime."

This was fascinating. It sounded like it was possible that Cross had always been able to sense ether being used. Many animals on Mira seemed to be able to naturally use ether. So what if in some genetic twist of fate Cross could do something similar. Was she literally a natural at it? Elma stood up. It was something to be considered later. "I'd like that. But it will have to wait. For know we'd better get on our way so we can set up the probe and still have time for a goods nights rest."

Lin and Cross nodded, and the three began working there way back down the cliff, Cross once again cautiously taking her time. After thanking the crew of the base camp and climbing back in there jeep, the trio set off toward their first objective.

* * *

The trip to the probe site wasn't long, even with Elma's driving speed somewhat slowed by the fading light, it only took them about twenty minutes. The pulled off from the side of the path that lead to Janpath lake about twenty yards, and got to work assembling the drilling mount for the probe, doing so in the beams of the jeep's headlight out of deference to the fading sunlight. Cross had felt a bit embarrassed at the start, not knowing how to do anything beyond grunt labor, but Elma and Lin had been very understanding at teaching her how to get the probe setup. Once they had assembled the drilling platform, Cross helped Elma muscle the probe itself into place, a difficult task given that it was eight feet long, half a foot in diameter, and made of heavy metal. Once they were finished, Lin double checked all the setting, then handed over her PDA to Cross so that she could do the honors.

Cross graciously accepted, pressing the button prominently displayed on the devices holographic screen. The bottom section of the probe split open, and a piercingly bright blue-white beam shot out from the now revealed innards, striking the ground. The beam quickly ate up the earth below it, and after a few seconds the mount released the probed, which dropped itself into the hole it had dug, though it's top remained attached to the mount by a thick tether. Once it had buried itself completely, Cross began walking over to look in the whole, but paused halfway, realizing it might not be safe.

"It's fine." Elma said, "Now that it's in the ground there no danger from the drilling laser."

Cross nodded, and took the last couple steps to the hole, then peered down it. It actually wasn't that interesting, just the top of the probe dimly light by light from the laser leaking up the gap between the probe and the edge of the hole. "And that's it?" She asked, somewhat disappointed in the mundanity of it.

Lin shrugged. "Yeah, for B.L.A.D.E.'s most important job, probe installation isn't actually very glamorous. Now we just wait till it gets down a couple more feet, then attach the solar panel to the top of the tether, and lay it on the ground." She started walking to the jeep. "Here, I'll show you how that's done."

Lin grabbed a small blue panel from the case some of the more sensitive parts of the mounting rig had been set it, and proffered it to Cross. "Once the probe has drilled itself underground, it doesn't need much power. Between the onboard generator, and this solar panel, it should be able to keep going for about a year." The young mechanic motioned to a socket on the bottom of the panel. "Just unattach the tether from the rig, attach it here, and firmly place the panel on top of the hole. That's all there is to it."

"Gotcha." Cross responded, then walked over to the mounting rig to do just that. Just as Lin had said, it was simple, not even taking a minutes worth of time. When she had finished, she helped Elma and Lin pack the mounting rig back up. "So. Are we camping here?" Cross asked.

"We'll drive for about another hour and then set up. With three and a half hour sleeping shifts that should put us at South Janpath base camp by dinner tomorrow." Elma turned to Lin after putting her current load of mounting rig parts in the back of the jeep. "You up for keeping first watch Lin?"

The young mechanic nodded eagerly. "You know it. Nothings going to get passed Lin Lee Ko!"

"How about you Cross? Second or third?"

Cross considered it briefly before replying. "I'll take second. I owe you that night you found me."

Elma chuckled. "It's not a debt that needed re-paid, but fair enough."

The three quickly finished packing, got back in the jeep and drove off to their campsite.

The drive went peacefully, and went they had traveled far enough for Elma's liking, they stopped to set up their tents and a small fire. Cross immediately went to sleep despite Lin's good natured griping that they wouldn't be able to tell ghost stories without everyone here; middle watch was the worst, and you wanted to get as much sleep as you could on either side to help compensate.

* * *

Cross sat on small rock near their campsite, looking out at NLA. She'd relieved Lin on watch maybe an hour ago, it was impossible to tell from the never changing moons, and she'd left her PDA over at the tents. The city was still impressive looking; its titanic walls, ring of cerulean spikes and massively different ascetic from its surroundings really set it apart. Cross sighed. It looked impressive, but it still didn't look familiar. From everything she had heard, she must have spent the past two years on the White Whale, yet nothing about the city that was its heart seemed familiar to her.

It worried her. _Surely_ something _should have triggered some memories like turning on the lightblade did,_ Cross thought to herself as she laid a hand on said weapon. She sighed again. Maybe it had just been the angle she'd been seeing things from. Perhaps if she explored the city thoroughly on foot she'd find something that would make her remember something.

For now though, she was out in the wilderness. And even if Elma had said the indegens near where they were going weren't particularly dangerous, it didn't hurt to be prepared. She stood up, unsheathed her lightblade, or photon saber as the store had referred to it, and began to work her way through some basic forms.

After practicing for a good hour, Cross turned the lightblade off at re-sheathed it. Still about an hour and a half to go. She'd forgotten, hah, how boring night watch could be. Desperate for something to do, she pulled out the knife Elma had lent her back when they had first met, sat herself back down on her rock, and started passing ether through it. She'd never had the chance to give it a proper look and see what exactly about it made it such a low grade focus. Maybe, _hopefully_ , it would be something she'd be able to fix.

She focused herself mentally on the gem and slowly began trickling ether through it. It took some doing to get the flow down enough so that she could observe how the ether reacted with gem, but once she did, the problem was obvious.

Much of the ether was simply sliding around the gem. The gathering sigil wasn't accepting as much ether as it should have been, and the ether's flow out of the projecting sigil was similarly slow. Cross had expected some of that as a consequence of putting two such arrays on one focus, the arrays would interfere with each other, but where she had been expecting to lose maybe ten, twenty percent efficiency at the most, this focus was losing maybe forty to fifty percent. Was it a poor carving job perhaps?

Cross stood up, and did a lap around the campsite a good distance out, making sure nothing was nearby. She would have to focus all her attention on the focus to examine the sigils in detail, so she needed to make sure nothing was lurking around. After completing her lap, satisfied there was nothing nearby, she sat back down, put the knife in her palms, and focused on it as hard as she could.

As the rest of the world slowly faded away, Cross began passing ether through the knife's focus. As she did, she gradually lowered the amount she was using and the speed she was doing so at. Eventually, she got both low enough so that she could sense it stick in the carved channels of the sigil, so that she could, feel, the shape of them from how the ether entered the gem. They were amazingly precisely cut, but they felt cold. The corners were too angular, and the whole thing felt emotionally cold. Dead. It was wrong. Ether was the stuff of life, it responded to emotions and intentions, without which life had no meaning. The most important part of carving the sigil was the emotions that went into it. You had to put yourself into the proper emotional state, as befitted the intended purpose of the focus. The emotions would then linger in the gem, helping whoever used it bend the ether toward what they wanted it to do. For this focus, with its dual sigils meant for protection and healing, the emotions should have been nurturing, helping, concern. But there weren't any.

Cross slipped out of her trance and growled. "What, did some idiot cut this thing with an automated machine?"

She practically jumped out of her skin when Elma replied from behind her. "Yes actually. Why?"

"Ah! Sorry! You startled me there." Cross looked around at her surroundings guiltily. "I'm sorry for not watching as closely as I should have. I did check around the camp before I started examining the knife though."

Elma waved her off. "Don't worry, I'd figured you'd taken precautions. Now what were you saying about the knife's focus being machine cut? They all are."

Cross's eyes boggled. "All of them? Why? That, that's….That's just so horribly wrong."

Elma looked at Cross quizzically. "Is it? I've never noticed a problem."

"Hmmmm." Cross bit her lip. How best to explain this? If Elma had never used a properly carved focus, she'd never have known otherwise to see how much this mattered. "Ok, you've got a couple foci on your weapons yeah? I figure that blurring thing you did against the lepyx and the grexes was one?"

Elma nodded affirmatively, looking impressed by the deduction. "Indeed. The manufactures call the effect 'ghostwalker'."

"Ok, and when you use it, what do you think about?" Cross continued.

"I picture myself not getting hit."

"Ok. So ether is manipulated by what your intentions and your emotions are right?"

"Yes." Elma answered, but the white haired woman looked somewhat unsure of her answer, Cross went ahead with her explanation anyway.

"Well, while thinking of what you want isn't that hard, it is hard to get yourself into a proper emotional state during pitched combat. With that in mind, _proper_ ," Cross stressed the word, and jabbed her finger angrily at the focus on the knife, "foci are hand carved by people who put themselves into the right emotional state for what the focus is intended to do. For your ghostwalker focus, a protective or shifty feeling seem appropriate. Protective because it's a defensive effect, and shifty because the effect is kinda like faking out your opponent of where you are."

"And what does that have to do with the effectiveness of the carving?"

"Well, when done properly, some of that emotion kinda gets "stuck" in the channels you carved, and makes it work better. It makes the sigil function better at, well, channeling ether into or out of the gem, since the emotion there matches up with the intention of what you're trying to do. The specific pattern of the sigil determines the exact effect, and the gem itself focuses the ether into sufficiently dense amounts to actually do something. A simple machine is good for getting a well made sigil I suppose, but it can't feel the emotions needed to make it really work properly"

Elma's expression was skeptical. Cross could tell that the older woman seemed slightly unsure just how much she believed Cross's explanation, but she wasn't offended. Elma seemed to be a pretty sciency type, and they tended to have some troubles with the finer aspects of how ether use worked. "Well," Elma said, "you've given me some things to think over. But for now, it's time for my watch, off to bed with you."

"Eh? Don't I still have over an hour left?" Cross asked. She hadn't been focusing on the crystal for that long had she?

Elma smiled, and showed Cross the time on her PDA. It was in-fact time for Elma's shift at watch "It's probably the moons. Lots of people are used to using the one back on earth to help tell time, but the ones here don't move, so it throws them off."

"Oh." Good, she probably hadn't messed that up then. "Well good night I suppose." Cross gave a small wave as she walked to her tent.

"Good night Cross." Elma answered as she seated herself next to the fire.

As Cross lay down in her sleeping bag she thought about the poor quality ether focus. Elma had said they were all machine made. Was it just an issue of that being the only way to make enough for use? The idea had merit, a machine could make things much faster than a person could. But Elma didn't seem to know about the trade off. Surely someone so involved in the military would know about that. The whole thing was a mess. Why did she seem to know so much more than everyone else despite her amnesia? If she knew this much, surely she would have shared this information before right? So why did everyone act like every time she did something with ether it was impressive and new?

Unanswered questions circling through her head, Cross eventually drifted to sleep.

 **Authors Note: Welcome to the second part of the story! It will be covering the chapter 3 story mission of the game.**

 **Sorry if anyone was exited for the fight vs Volkampf the Pursuer, but he's basically just a tutorial boss, and I wanted to get on with the story. Plus, if they knew there was a potential tyrant in the area, why wouldn't they send an Interceptor team out looking for it? For that matter, its a red cinicula in an area you don't normally see them, a guy in a chopper should be able to find it pretty easy.**

 **I hope the explanation of how using ether worked was okay. Exactly how it works isn't super critical or anything, but Cross is better at using it than pretty much anybody else in NLA, for reasons that will be revealed later, once Cross remembers them. So because of that and because its how I'm rationalizing some of the more esoteric arts I figure I should give an explanation for how it works.**


	9. Chapter 8

The next day's travel across the plains of western Primordia was peaceful. None of the indigenous creatures in the area wanted to mess with an unfamiliar loud rumbling vehicle, though to Cross's dismay, a small flock of the large hump backed two legged bird-like creatures known as evellos decided that their jeep was a good candidate for a race, spurring Elma's competitive streak. To Elma's quiet joy, they had won, even if only by virtue of attrition; the birds had been blisteringly fast, but they couldn't go their full speed for more than a short burst, while the jeep had no such issue. Lin had laughed the entire time, while Cross just closed her eyes and was thankful that they were on wide flat ground. She was positive Elma was actually going faster than they had been on their way to NLA.

They stopped twice on their way to the base camp, once when they reached the shores of Janpath lake, where Cross gratefully took the opportunity to stretch her legs and enjoy the sights, and the second a ways further along the lakeshore, where they dropped off the skell repair supplies to Myles and his team. There Cross took the opportunity to get a good up close look at one of the giant robots. Lin was happy to help, and opened up the cockpit for her so that she could get a look at the inside. Cross didn't know what she had been expecting, but the cockpit seemed simple enough. A seat, a bunch of control panels, places for your arms and legs to slide into to control the machines own arms and legs. Well, maybe not simple, there was a lot of stuff, but there certainly wasn't anything that would explain her sense of unease. She eventually just gave up and chalked the unease up to some sort of incident in her youth that she couldn't remember. That was how these irrational fears normally went after all.

By the time they had managed to pry Lin away from helping repair the skell, the sun had started to set in earnest, its now orange glow framed beautifully by the beginning of the craggy cliffs and mesas that made up Primordia's south-east tip on the left and a small example of the continents mind boggling geographical features, a tilted sheaf of rock the size of one of the soccer fields Lin had showed her the other day balanced on a thin spire of rock, to the right. The effect was made even more stunning by the fact that from their position the sun was setting over the water of the ocean, with a small beach on the otherwise cliff dominated coastline between them and the water. Cross gazed at the sight in appreciation as Elma pulled their jeep out. "You know," she said, "looking at this makes me wonder if I shouldn't have picked the Pathfidners. I'm sure there are plenty of places on this world that top this for views."

Elma hummed sagely. "Well, the Interceptors do get to travel a lot. They are always out protecting Pathfinders and Reclaimers on their missions."

"Good. I definitely want to see more of this planet."

"Well, when you are in town instead of out seeing the sights, would you mind making me an ether focus in the fashion we talked about last night?"

"Eh?" Lin sounded confused at the prospect. "Do you mean by hand? I don't know much about making one, but that sounds like it would take forever."

"Well, _I_ don't know much about making one with a machine, but I'm pretty sure I know how to hand carve them. At the very least I'm sure it results in a more efficient focus. You can get some of your "emotions" into the gem if you do, which helps channel the ether more efficiently."

Lin looked skeptical, rather like Elma had during the night. "I dunno. Seems kinda…..wishy-washy."

"Well, we'll see how it goes once Cross makes one." Elma compromised. "What would you need to make one Cross?"

Cross gave it some thought before replying. "Well, I'd need some cutting tools. Very fine precision, and as hard has you could get the cutting edges."

"So diamond then."

"Tha'd be perfect if you could get me some yeah. Some sort of high powered magnifier. Preferably adjustable for a wide range of magnifications. A copy of whatever pattern you currently cut, and of course a selection of gems to work with. It might take me a couple tries to get it right since my memory isn't exactly clear right now, and there's always the chance that some of the gems will have internal flaws that would make them unsuitable."

"Well, none of those should be to hard for me to get my hands on. Would you happen to have any cutting tools like Cross mentioned Lin?"

The young mechanic shook her head sideways. "I use a CNC machine whenever I need something precision cut. You'd probably have to ask one of the jewelers in the commercial district. I'm pretty sure there's a guy on Melville street who does custom stuff."

"Well, get me what I need and I'd be happy to make one." Cross replied. "I'd prefer to make a version off the one on the utility knife. The effects are nice even if the quality is subpar. I'd certainly like having a better version around."

"Fair enough," Elma agreed. "I'll see what I can do."

From there the three chated, mostly giving Cross lessons on the creatures that lived around these parts, in case they ran into any the next day.

* * *

After another two hours or so of driving, they arrived at the South Janpath Base Camp. As absolutely stunning as the view from the base camp at Shadow Rise had been, Cross thought this one had it beat. While the view of the landscapes it had weren't the greatest, being tucked back in an alcove amongst the beginnings of the cliffy end of south-east Primordia, the plain around it was blanketed in gorgeous soft yellow colored four petaled flowers of a wide range of sizes. They ranged from the size of her palm, to so large that the petals were at least as long as she was tall, and probably even a little bigger. The sweet scent of them hung in the air, but it wasn't thick enough to be suffocating, instead it was merely tranquil and relaxing. Large insects, as big as her torso, floated peacefully around, drinking nectar from the flowers. Papils, if she had remembered Elma and Lin's lectures correctly. Unlike the aggressive blattas she and Elma had fought, these seemed peaceful, and the pearly color of their chitin, which transitioned to a gorgeous pink and gold on the wings almost made them gleam in the light of the setting sun. For all their size, they even moved almost silently, there wings didn't seem to flap, and instead projected a soft purple light, which fell of the creature in slowly drifting motes. Were they holding themselves aloft with ether? Fascinating.

The base camp itself sprouted the symbol of the Reclaimers. "Yeah, okay. I take back what I said earlier. I want to be a Reclaimer now and get assigned to look after this place." Cross said looking around at the area. "Though from what I read about them, I'm not sure why that division is here. There doesn't look to be much wreckage around."

Elma pointed to the north east as she pulled the jeep to stop along some other vehicles. "You see that passage up there amongst the cliffs?"

Cross scanned the cliffs that blocked the continent's western coastline until she spotted what Elma was talking to. "Yeah."

"That leads down to the only beach on the entire west side of Primordia. A lot of debris from the White Whale washes up there and on the beach we passed earlier. So the outfitters do a lot of work around here."

"Ahh. I see. Makes sense." Cross answered as the jeep came to a complete stop.

"I'm off to go help the guys with supper." Lin called, as clambered out of the vehicle and hurried to get her things unpacked from the back.

"Not that I'd complain about eating your cooking Lin, but what's the rush?" Elma asked.

Lin rolled her eyes at Elma as she and Cross more calmly got out of the jeep and walked over to get their own things. "The sooner we eat the sooner we go to bed!"

Cross looked at the young girl curiously. "Didn't just last night you want to stay up late telling ghost stories?"

"Yeah, but that was then. Now it's this night, and tomorrow we get to go exploring! It can't come soon enough!"

"We aren't here to explore you know. We need to find Nelson and his team and make sure they're alright." Elma chastened

Lin waved off Elma's concerns. "Two of the team were Interceptors right? And Nelson himself was pretty good with a gun. Plus they had a Skell with them. I'm sure they're fine."

 _I tried looking up info on Nelson's team. But I couldn't find anything on there divisions or even names. So I'm assuming Nelson was a Pathfinder, and that he had two interceptors and a curator with him._

"Most likely yes." Elma agreed. "But nowhere on this planet is completely safe. We have to treat this seriously."

"I know, I know." Lin scrunched her face up trying to look more serious. Cross thought she looked seriously funny. "But we've got you and Cross, and you're both like certified badasses or something. Plus I've been fine tuning my gatling gun recently! I think I've got the missile launcher's reload time down by half, and I've more than tripled the amount of ammo it can carry!"

Cross stared in shock. "Uh. What."

"Yeah! It's gonna be awesome!" Lin said, distinctly not relieving Cross's confusion, as she headed off toward the base camps sleeping quarters to stow her things.

"I picked up one of those things back at the store. They're pretty darn heavy. How does she fire it straight?"

Elma chuckled. "Quite a bit of practice, I assure you. She really wants to be allowed to explore around Mira more often, so she puts in a lot of combat practice so I'll think she's ready enough. She's gotten pretty good."

"I. Well. Alrighty then." Cross answered, not really sure what to think about that. "Guess she's full of surprises."

Cross and Elma finished getting there own things out the back of the jeep and headed off to put them in the guest quarters.

* * *

They walked out of the base camp the next morning, carrying a week's worth of camping supplies and their weapons. It probably wouldn't take them that long to search the entire south west corner of Primordia, Elma had guessed maybe only a little over a day, but better to bring too much stuff than too little. They weren't taking anything else at first, the goal to simply find Nelson's team figure out what they needed. Cross boggled at what Lin was carrying. In addition to her part of the camping supplies, she also had a gatling gun about two thirds as big as she was and a thick metal plate that Cross recognized as one of the foldout tower shields that were on sale. Cross though the young girl looked almost ready to topple over backwards. "You sure you have all that Lin?"

Lin just smiled and waved her concern off. "I'm good. These aren't store standard. I modified 'em so they'd be easier to carry."

Cross wasn't overly assured, those things still looked heavy, but she doubted Lin would let her help. She likely wouldn't want to be seen as being unable to carry her own wait, so to speak.

They spent the better part of the day makeing their way up the cliffs, and the rest working their way south through the rocky terrain, all the time keeping a look out for any sign of Nelson's team. When night rolled around, they had reached the tree and boulder dotted plain under the overhanging talon, and with a lack of leads on Nelson, decieded it was a good time to set up camp. Lin took the opportunity to try and tell ghost stories to her captive audiance. For the most Cross didn't think they were to scary, except for the one about the haunted Skell. That one gave her some tingles.

The next day was more of the same, as they gradually began to make their way eastwards, following the last known direction Nelson's team had reported in with. They took a break at lunch in an area where the ridge that led to the lower section of the continent continued higher than their currenent elevation, putting them in a small steep walled canyon. The three took off their packs and wandered around the area, looking for any clues while they munched on some trail rations.

Elma was the first to find anything, something that could have been a set of footprints going up to the east. Lin agreed after scanning them that they were probably from a skell. They'd likely been washed out some from a rainstorm that had hit the area a few days ago.

Cross shouldered her pack. "Makes sense I suppose. They were headed east last time they were heard from." Elma and Lin agreed, picked up there own things, and then the three headed east.

The path opened back up quickly to the east, on their right was once again the large plain dotted with trees and boulders lay in the shadows of the rocky talon above them. A wide low canyon stretched forward, mostly out from the cover of the above rocky prominence except for one part that lay under a side branch of the formation. Something seemed to glint at the end of the canyon, but they were too far for Cross to tell if it was the ocean, which should lay in that direction, or something more sinister.

"Hmmm. I wonder which way they would have gone. Shall we go back to the plains first?" Elma suggested.

"Sounds fine with me." Lin agreed.

Cross squinted, and held up a hand to stop her companions. "Hold up. Is that metal along the canyon walls?" She pointed to the left hand side of the canyon, fairly far from them ahead. "Right there?"

"Oh yeah!, I see it. Nice catch Cross." Lin pulled out her PDA and pointed it where Cross was indicated. "Huh. I'm getting some interference. Maybe it's the same as whatever was interfering with Nelson's communications?"

"It's likely. Elma agreed. "The odds that two different things are interfering with signals in one area is awfully low. We should go check it out. Be cautious everyone."

Cross nodded, and pulled out her photon saber, but didn't flick it on yet.

The three walked up the canyon until they could properly see the glint of metal. Then they ran the rest of the way. It was a ruined skell lying up against the wall of the canyon, almost under the arch of a side protrusion of the great stony talon that loomed above them. The green paint was burnt and mared in rough patches, slash marks were everywhere, and the gleaming metal cockpit in the midsection looked like it had been pried open by something.

Elma swore upon reaching it, the first time Cross had heard her do so. "Damn. I was afraid of this. I didn't think it would be true though."

Lin scrunched her face in determination and started going over the injuries on the machine. "Definitely a fight. But the damage doesn't look like it's from claws or fangs.

Cross walked around the surrounding area. "No signs of any blood. Or….other remains. Lin, how fresh is the damage?"

"Mmmmm. About two days I'd say."

"So after the rainstorm then." Elma finished for Cross. Looks like she was having the same train of thought Cross was. "Then there should still be signs of injuries if they were killed by predators here. And if they got away they would have gone back to base camp. So they must have been taken somewhere."

"I'm not reaching the base camp on the coms." Lin looked worried as she tapped away at her PDA. "This isn't good."

"Is something specifically blocking the signal? Or is just general interference?" Elma quarried, her voice serious. Cross thought she sounded like she already suspected an answer.

"It doesn't seem deliberate. I can't pick up anything much further away than maybe ten yards with any of the scanning functions I've added to this thing.

"Hmm. Strange." Elma mused. "I…."

Elma didn't have time to finish her thought as Cross threw off her pack and flicked on her photon saber and brought it up in a defensive stance as a bolt of green energy flew over there heads and impacted the wall far back down they way had they came from, sending a shower of pebbles faintly clattering to the ground.

Two very large bipedal creatures, probably twice as tall as Cross, stood about twenty yards from them up the valley. Their pink-grey skin, where visible under their gold trimmed black uniforms, covered heavy muscles, and their bald heads with long ovular ears had a mask made of metal and glowing orange lines that blocked the view of their eyes and mouths. Other than their leather looking black and gold uniforms and masks, they were unarmored save for a pair of thick metal forearm bracers. They were armed as well, one with a rifle made of graceful curves, whose barrel glowed with a deathly green light, the other with some odd contraption, a hilt with a short barrel as wide as Cross's own head attached, that had glowing green spokes sticking out the end. Both also had large mace's hanging from their belts, which were covered in glowing circles of orange and white.

The one with the rifle, who had presumably fired the shot that had gone over their head shouted at them once they had all turned their attentions to them. "Earth aliens! Surrender now and drop your weapons!" Its voice was deep and belligerent.

"How do they know about Earth?" Lin asked, practically quaking in her boots. "Elma, you don't think they're the ones who…" she trailed off.

"They might be. Still, we don't know for sure." Elma motioned for Cross to lower her photon saber, then held up her own hands in a symbol of peace. "We come in peace. And we are willing to negotiate. If you have any earth alien prisoners we'd ask the conditions for their release. If you don't we will leave you in peace."

"No negotiations, no conditions." The, alien, Cross supposed based on what Lin and Elma had said, growled. "We have our orders. All earth aliens must die." It leveled its rifle at Elma and fired.

The white haired woman had already began calmly sidestepping out of the way even before the alien pulled the trigger, and the bolt of energy went whizzing past her. She dropped her pack and drew her guns. "Right then. If that's how you're going to be, you don't leave us any choice. Lin, stay back and give us cover fire. Cross, you're with me. Jump as high as you can on the count of three."

"Right!" Lin and Cross shouted, though Cross wasn't sure why she was going to be jumping. Cross brought her photon saber back up and charged the alien with the large tube. She didn't know what the weapon was, and didn't want to.

Unfortunately, it had already aimed the weapon in her direction, though rather strangely upward pointing. The device glowed, and three shining orange spheres launched from it, arching toward Cross. _A handheld mortar? REALLY?_

At the same time, Cross heard Elma finish her count, while bolts of energy streaked at the white haired woman, though they always seemed to just miss. On Elma's cue, Cross jumped as hard as she could, though more sideways than she had previously wanted to, in hopes of dodging the mortar shots.

Right after she jumped, a storm of bullets sprayed toward the enemies under her feet. Lin had pulled out her gatling gun, and was firing a hail of bullets at the enemies. The bullet fire tore into the mortar wielders legs, flinching it as it was about to launch a round at Cross's intended landing point. The one firing at Elma manage to dodge to the side, only getting grazed a couple of time from Lin's fire, only for a barrage from Elma's guns, glowing a strange green, to eat into its abdomen.

Cross landed on the ground, the initial mortar volley landing where she would have been had she jumped forward instead of to the side in a massive explosion that she could feel the heat and pressure from. _Really really glad that didn't hit me._ She was about to switch to her assault rifle, to keep the alien occupied while she got into melee range, when it decided to close on her instead. It barreled toward her, mace raised over head in one hand, the glowing barrel of its mortar pointed straight at her in the other.

Cross didn't even have time to swear before in plethora of loud buzzing sounds a swarm of tiny missiles streaked around her and rammed into the mortar launcher, which promptly exploded, tearing of the alien's hand. "HA! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT SUCKER!" Lin shouted.

To its credit, the massive alien seemed completely undaunted by the lack of its hand, and gave a mighty swing with its mace at Cross. Cross swung her sword up into a block, hoping the weapon's energy blade would cut clean through the mace.

Instead, it met a shimmering field that covered the mace's head as the glowing rings that covered the weapon brightened. The power behind the blow sent Cross reeling back. ' _Ok. Definitely don't block. That did NOT' work_ she thought as she danced around the next swing.

* * *

Meanwhile, Elma's opponent was clearly frustrated as all of its attempts to gun down the dual wielder were in vain. The white haired woman always seemed to be one step ahead of her target's fire, and the few times it got close, she flickered to a position just out of danger. On the other hand her own shots, still shining green, dug into the alien, which impressively remained standing despite a multitude of bullet holes in its chest. Finally, it looked like Elma, who the alien had managed to force up against the cliff face with its steady stream of shots, didn't have anywhere to dodge to, but when it was about to pull the trigger to shoot her, a wash of blue and black came over her and she vanished.

"Fine then!" it roared. "I'll just mow down your little companion instead." It turned its rifle toward Lin, who had been busy reloading after assisting Cross, causing her to eep and drop her gatling gun. The young mechanic barely had time to pull out her shield and interpose it between her and the alien before it shot her, and even then one bolt impacted her leg, though her armor stopped it from reaching her flesh.

Before it could fire again, two swords erupted from it chest, their green glow dulled by the coating of its own blood. "That's what you get for taking your eyes off me." Elma snarked as she withdrew her swords.

* * *

Cross nimbly ducked as her opponent took another swing at her. It had a lot of openings, but she wasn't sure she could finish it it one hit, and she really didn't want to give it the chance to actually hit her with that mace. At best she'd have a couple broken ribs. At worst… bye bye functioning vital organs.

"You can't beat me tiny earth alien." It taunted as it took another swing. "You're little tricks aren't a match for my strength."

Cross gave a small laugh, as she braced herself and caught the brute's sideways swing with the flat of her blade. "Then I'm sure you'll be fine after this." She allowed the aliens blow to push her sideways, her feat skidding across the ground, as she constantly repositioned her center of mass to remain stable. When the blow came to an end, she did a lunging hop forward, rolling her body toward the alien as she did so she she tumbled end over end in the air and bringing her left hand to her blades grip to get as much power as she possible could behind the blow, all while maneuvering her blade down the curve of the mace and into the creatures wrist.

As she completed her aerial forward roll, her sword dug through the aliens wrist, severing its other hand from its body. It grunted in pain. "Not bad earth alien." it said, sounding grudgingly respectful as Cross righted herself after landing. Then it smacked her sideways with its other arm, the impact of the thick metal bracer sending her tumbling away from it.

Cross acrobatically recovered from her roll to a standing position. "Not bad yourself. You don't even have hands left." She swung her sword downward at her now charging opponent in a half swing, flicking her wrist and letting go it the end, sending it tumbling end over end toward her enemies left side. The alien stopped its charge to throw itself sideways to right out of the way. "Gotcha." Cross crowed, her rifle leveled at it. She pressed both triggers, sending a grenade and a round of bullets at her now prone target. It didn't get back up.

* * *

Lin gave a sigh of relief. They'd won. Those aliens had been tough, fighting on even after they'd had their hands cut off or a small pile of bullets in their stomachs. She was beginning to regret being so anxious to go out exploring.

"You okay Lin?" Elma asked her gently.

Lin put on a brave face. "I'm fine. I got my shield up in time. Only got nicked in the shin a little. My armor stopped it." She couldn't have Elma turning them around just because she was scared. If these aliens were who had found Nelson. Well, she didn't want to think about it, but she doubted it was good.

Cross picked her sword back up, sheathed it, and walked over to Lin and Elma. "Do you think these aliens are responsible for the communication problems?"

"Maybe." Elma answered. "It would make the most sense."

"There base is probably up ahead." Lin reasoned. "The interference seems to get worse the further we go down the canyon, which would make sense if they're the ones causing it. Should we go get back up?"

"I don't think we have the time." Cross said. "This was probably a patrol. If they are holding Nelson in his men hostage, once they find that a patrol has been killed, and in a way that obviously wasn't from wild animals, there is a good chance they would kill any prisoners."

Lin gulped. She didn't want to think about it, but... "Would. Would Nelson and his team even still be alive? They seemed pretty determined to kill us."

"Probably at least some of them. It sounded like they wanted to kill all humans, and to do that they'd want intelligence. They'd only need a couple people for that, so they'd capture the first group they came across, then kill any more. But now any prisoners are going to be a liability."

Elma nodded in agreement. "Cross's reasoning is sound. And even if she's wrong that's not a risk I'm willing to take. Nelson's team's time may very well be limited now. Come on. There isn't time to waste. Weapons, ammo, and medical supplies only. Dump everything else.

Lin emptied her pack, and the trio hustled down the canyon. They quickly passed a small path leading up to the top left, which they decided was probably where the patrol had come from. If it wasn't for the glimmer of metal now visible at the end of the canyon, they would have gone to check it out, but whatever was ahead was large, and therefore most likely important.

They reached the structure in about ten minutes. The walls of the canyon, which had started to lower and turn away from each other, had been expanded into an open gate. Massive boulders and loose debris had been piled high, secured by a scale like mesh of metal plates. From what they could see, it looked like the canyon walls significantly opened up after the gate entrance. A small plateau was in the middle, with a squat tower in the same architectural style as gate walls prominently positioned on it. A few other small structures were visible, and many more were undoubtedly out of sight.

"Right." Elma checked her ammunition. "This is it. It doesn't look like they have the front guarded right no, probably not expecting anyone around here. Lets try and keep this quite. There a whole base of them and three of us."

Lin agreed fervently with that statement. She had no desire to fight an army, no matter how badass Elma and Cross were. Maybe if they had skells, but definitely not on foot.

"Let's go." Cross said, stepping forward into the alien base. Lin and Elma followed right behind.

They were immediately alerted to a massive machine standing to their right, that had been hidden by the wall. It was twice as tall as the aliens they had previously fought. It was shaped strangely, a bulbous body supported by thick bird like legs. The front of the body swept up and outwards into a neck that was topped by what looked like a human sized robotic torso. And it had a massive cannon dangling from its underbelly. Which was glowing. "Get out of the way!" all three of them yelled to each other in warning as they dove.

A wide brilliant beam of blue launched into where they had been and struck the cliff face behind them, ripping a sizable gash into it.

"There goes our stealth." Cross shouted as she picked herself up and drew her rifle, the large robot already turning toward them. Elma and Lin were right behind her, drawing their own guns.

"Lin, hold its attention. Your shield should be able to take a hit from that cannon, but be carefull. Cross, me and you are going to try and break the cannon. Then aim for the torso up top."

"Gotcha!" Lin answered. Fortunately the adrenaline seemed to be blocking out what would otherwise have been abject fear. Well, not actually adrenaline, cause she was a mim right now, but whatever. It was faked well enough.

Elma and Cross circle to opposite sites of the ostritch-robot, while Lin leveled her gatling gun at the machine. "Hey fatty!" She shouted at it as she opened fire at its body. "Your mother was an ostrich and your father was an AT-ST!" Most of her bullets bounced harmlessly off its metal body, but it looked like a few delt damage. Cross and Elma opened fire from the sides of the robot at its main cannon.

It turned to face them, but Lin pressed a small switch on her gatling gun. Panels on the sides of the barrel flipped open, revealing rows of small missiles. She waited briefly as the targeting screens on the pack of the panels showed her the available targets. Target locks were available on the legs, the main body, the head, and the cannon. She dialed the knob that was at her front grip with her thumb, selecting the head of the creature, then pulled the trigger for the missiles. They lept away from her and impacted the robot's head, turning its attention back to her. The sound of gears cranking away started, as the weapon began to move the next volley of missiles from the weapons magazines to the firing chambers

Two panels on the robots back irised opened as it knelt a little, pointing the glowing holes at her. Two glowing spheres launched out of them at her. There wasn't time to dodge, not if those were mortars like the ones shot at Cross earlier. She tossed her gun behind her and pulled her shield off her back, extending and the crouching behind it. The mortar shells impacted the shields surface and exploded in burst of energy, blocking her sight of Cross and Elma, who were still hacking away at the robot's main cannon. She was pushed to her knees by the force of her explosion, and she could feel her arms and legs strain againnst the explosion to keep her position secure.

The explosion, being an explosion, was short lived. Lin grunted and picked herself back up to a fully standing position, rammed her shield into the ground in front of her, and picked back up her gatling gun. "Alright then. No more Ms. Nice Lin," she grumbled as she aimed the weapon at the robots head. She pulled down both triggers, bullets spraying forth from the barrel while the side panels opened up again, launching another flurry of missles. She kept the missile trigger depressed, and there was a slight delay as the gatling gun screeched in protest at having to reload so quickly, then another round of missiles slid into place and then launched. After the smoke cleared the robots head was in ruins.

Gameplay note: Lin hiding behind her shield isn't anything, its just the only way I could rationalize the giant mortar bombs that thing has not actually ripping anyone to shreds, and you can tank one of those hits if your hp is high enough when you fight your first puglith. Just, don't try and take one of those and a cannon blast back to back. Lin actually has two Arts that fire missiles, Fire Carnival and Thermal Payload. Thermal Payload is TP art. And yes, you can actually fire them off back to back. It's kinda fun. -

Lin was about to give a shout of joy until she looked down and saw the robot charging it main cannon again, so instead she gave out a panicked shout as she picked her shield back up, hoping she would be able to protect herself again. Her arms and legs were still feeling weak, and she was afraid they'd buckle if she was hit again.

As she braced herself as best she could, Cross flung her rifle to the side, drew and ignited her lightsaber, and gave a running leap at the main cannon. It wasn't a very high jump for a mim, thought it would have been an impressive one in a flesh and blood body, but it was enough to slip her lightsaber over the barrel of the cannon. She swung her left arm up, and placed the beam resistant bracer she was wearing on the blade, suspending herself in the air. The force of her sudden weight dug the blade into the cannon barrel, causing it to start smoking. Elma dashed over and yanked Cross's legs down, bringing the lightsaber sliding the rest of the way through the canon. As the two woman tumbled to the ground, the remnants of the cannon exploded from the built up power that no longer had anywhere to discharge to. The blast sent the robot reeling backward.

"Lin!" Elma shouted. "Knock it down!"

"Right!" Lin shouted back, as she picked her shield up in her right hand, braced her left hand against it and ran toward the machine's left leg. Her impact didn't knock it all the way over, it was much to massive, but it did splay the leg outward, and from the robot's jerky movements it looked like it wasn't going to be able to do much with its legs like they were. Lin bashed away at the leg with her shield, her strikes slowly denting and warping the metal, while Elma hacked away at it with her swords, once more glowing green with ether from her Upper Hand focus. Cross likewise swung away at the right leg, her strikes coming so fast they were almost a blur.

They didn't have long to attack though, the large robot regaining its balance and propping itself back up to a standing position. But as it raised its right leg back for kick at Cross, the metal of its right leg groaned and cracked, the damage Lin and Elma had dealt to it having weakened it enough that it couldn't support the machine's entire weight.

The trio ran out of the way as the leg broke with a mighty snap, sending the main body tumbling to the ground. Before they could breath a sigh of relief, bolts of energy impacted the ground around them, comeing from the tower on the middle plateau and a building on a ridge to the north.

Elma ran to a nearby boulder up against the cliff wall, hurriedly motioning at Lin and Cross to follow her. 'Right. This isn't going as well as I'd hoped. Cross, get out the knife and start fixing yourself. Lin, you have the deepest magazines, provide cover fire while I reload. Once one of us finishes we'll switch positions until we're all back to one hundred percent and fully reloaded. Then we make a break for back of the plateau. There must be a way up to the higher ground over there."

Cross had started healing herself as soon as Elma had given the order. What scorches she had quickly started clearing up. Lin swung her gatling gun over the top of the boulder, and sighted through it as best she could at the enemies firing on their position. _Well, I wanted an adventure,_ she thought as she let out short bursts of suppressing fire. _I should have asked for something calmer. Like a puppy._


	10. Chapter 9

Cross glanced out from behind the rock they were using for cover and fired a couple bullets at the pair of aliens in the tower upon the plateau who were trying to keep her Elma and Lin pinned down. "They aren't the best shots, and no one else has shown up to shoot at us besides those two and the one with the shotgun to our left. I don't think this base is very well staffed."

Elma paused from re-positioning the rest of her ammo clips to more easily accessible locations and snuck a peek at the base they were in from the side of the rock. "This whole place looks fairly unfinished. I don't think they were expecting visitors so soon."

"What's the plan? We have no idea where Nelson and his team are, and this place seems pretty big." Cross asked. "They could be anywhere."

"Hmmm. Lin, can you get anything at all with your comm device?"

The young mechanic pulled out said device and tapped away on it. "Huh. That's weird. The interference isn't anywhere as bad here as it was outside. Almost like it's being screened out or something. I'll start a scan for Nelson's team. Hopefully their emergency transponders are still working."

"Well, I can't claim to understand the details about how stuff like that works, but it would make sense if they had to contact the rest of their people right?" Cross asked.

"Yeah, but that would mean there would have to be some direction that there's not interference in. It seems like such an inelegant way to do it." Lin answered, seeming uncertain. She brightened up as her comm device dinged. "Got it! A faint signal from a BLADE emergency transponder is coming through the interference from that big building up on the plateau past the tower."

Elma nodded. "Good. We can figure out what's going on with the interference some other time. It looks like there's an opening up to the right, then the ridge with the shotgun armed alien starts. I think I can make out a bridge connecting that ridge to the middle. If they layed this place out with any sense, the way up is on the opposite side as the building with their prisoners, so expect a way up on that side. We go on the count of three."

"Got it." Cross and Lin chimed.

"One. Two. Three!" Elma counted, breaking into a dead sprint when she reached three. Lin and Cross followed right behind her. As they ran, Elma fired a couple shots at the alien standing atop the short boxy tower ahead of them, while Cross did the same to the ones in the tower to their right. They ran past some sort of triangular barracksy looking structure on their right, that seemed mercifully empty, under the bridge Elma had noticed, then rounded a bend in the valley between the ridge on their left and the plateau to their right to, as Elma had guessed, find a wide sloped path leading up to the ridge on the left. As they approached the slope, a squad of four of the aliens exited another barracks further down the valley and began shooting them. They ducked behind a thick pillar made of the same gleaming metal that made up all the building in the alien base which, based on there being on at the other side of the wide sloped path, Cross guessed was the beginnings of a gate made to stop intruders from just waltzing on up to the second level.

"Ok, we handle these guys, then we…" Elma began as a barrage of energy bolts hit the cliff above them, showering them with debris. "Ok, Lina and I will handle these guys, Cross you go stop that one with the shotgun from bringing this cliff side down on us."

Cross nodded. "Can do. Good luck." Not waiting for a reply, she ran up the rest of the way up the slope. As she turned onto the flat of the ridge top, she saw another alien standing guard at the door to the building the shotgun wielder was perched on. It was armed similarly to the one Elma had fought when they had first encountered them, with a rifle and a mace. It opened fire at her, but she had already leapt sideways, and hurriedly took cover behind a mound of crates and barrels along the side of the ridge.

As she planned her move, she heard the sounds of Lin and Elma exchanging fire with the aliens down below, then saw the flash of another shotgun blast fly over head toward her companions. Given the lack of pained cries, shooting lasers didn't seem to help the accuracy problems shotguns had at long range, but it was only a matter of time. Cross vaulted over the barrel she was using as cover with one hand, the other firing her rifle blindly at the alien guarding the doorway. As she finished her leap, she took better aim at her target, and launched a grenade at its torso. It managed to dodge out of the way, and the grenade exploded harmlessly inside the building, but all Cross really needed was a distraction to close the distance. She bolted toward the alien, switching her rifle out for her lightblade as she went.

It had recovered from its dodge in time to draw its mace, with which it managed to block her first blow, but it wasn't fast enough to stop her next three from digging into its sides. As it staggered back in pain, Cross stepped in right next to it and rammed her blade up through the bottom of its jaw toward its brain. As she withdrew her weapon, the alien fell over dead, though Cross didn't pause to confirm the kill,;time was of the essence, and anything that fell over after having searing hot plasma poke them in what was most creatures brain space was probably actually dead.

She ran inside the building, and took a quick look around. It was empty, save for a series of ramps on the left hand side that lead to the ceiling. " _Alright"_ she thought to herself as she headed up the ramps. " _This one's probably higher ranking, or more skilled than the others. He's the only one with a weapon that isn't a mortar or a rifle, and I think I saw some extra metal on his uniform as I was running at the building."_ As she jogged up the last stretch of ramp, she took a deep calming breath, and willed herself into the same walking meditation she had gone into against Doug.

It served her well, because it was the only way she would have had the reaction time to dodge the near point blank shotgun blast that came one second later. She heard something moving to her left, out of sight somehow, and immediately fell to the ground, then a blast of laser bolts shot through where she had been standing. The shotgun alien was now standing to the left of the ramp, it must have been lying concealed in a divot between the edge of the floor and the rail that rimmed the roof which she hadn't been able to seen. It took a step toward her, and pointed its shotgun toward her now prone body.

As it was about to fire, Cross rolled to the side, falling off the edge of the ramp to the next one down. She contorted herself as she fell enough to land on her knees, then twisted so she was flat against the wall, blocking herself from her enemies sight. "Well. This isn't working as well as it could." Cross muttered angrily as she switched back to her rifle. She ejected one of the two remaining grenades in the magazine into her hand. They wouldn't go off without the kind of heavy impact provided by firing them out of a gun, but the alien shouldn't know that. She could change the setting of course, but she didn't exactly have the time.

Cross lobbed the grenade backward, arching it toward the opening where she could hear the alien waiting for her, then clambered up the side of the ramp behind it. As planned, the alien had been distracted by her feint, and had been busy distancing itself from the explosive. Cross pointed her rifle at it, and opened fire with both bullets and the last grenade in the magazine. Most of the bullets scored direct hits, but the grenade exploded as the alien tried to bat it away with its mace. The explosion didn't harm her foe, but the distraction gave Cross the time she needed. She hurriedly closed,dropping her rifle so as to not waste time it as she re-drew her lightblade.

The alien attempted to bat her away with a powerful swing of it mace, but it telegraphed the attack far too easily and Cross ducked under the blow. She wasn't yet in a good position to strike at its body, so she used the momentum of the duck to plunge her sword through her opponent's left foot into to the metal deck of the buildings roof.

With grunt of pain, the alien kicked up at her with its right foot. Keeping her hand on her sword, still impaled in the creature's foot, Cross jumped up turning her body parallel to the ground and perpendicular to her attacker as she did. With the momentum of the maneuver, she drug her sword up through her opponent's leg, all the way to the knee, where she had to turn it off or risk losing the momentum necessary to complete the spin as the blade encounter the much more resistant knee cap and armor.

Howling in rage, the alien brought it mace pounding down on her, knocking her to the floor with a mighty clang. Cross groaned in pain as she turned her sword back on and swept it at her opponent's legs, though it jumped back before her attack hit.

However, as its injured leg hit the ground, the limb buckled, sending the alien tumbling to the ground. It caught itself with its right arm, though it was forced to drop its mace doing so. With its left, it pointed its shotgun at Cross, who had been standing back up, and squeezed the trigger.

Cross had been cautions though, and had raised her gauntleted left arm to cover her face as she stood. Bolts impacted the armor on her chest, scorching holes most of the way through, but the few that would have hit her face merely heated up the material the gloves outer shell was constructed from.

"If you weren't with a group of xenocidal nuts, I'd actually respect you because of your skill." Cross said as she rushed her opponent, lightblade held ready for an upward strike. As her sword sliced through her opponent's weapon, it positioned itself into a kneel on its injured leg, and sent its right fist barreling into her midsection, driving her back.

"You are skilled for an earth alien. Few have done so well against me." It grunted back as it picked its mace back up.

Cross cautiously walked over toward her fallen rifle, keeping her sword between her and her injured opponent. She didn't think it would be able to stand, but it might kill her to be uncautious, since she herself barely could. She scooped her rifle back up quickly with one hand, never letting her eyes off her enemy. "See, that's what I'm talking about. I find discriminating skill, or anything really, based on race to be completely distasteful. What you yourself do is what really matters, so take it as a sign of my respect for your strength that I finish this safely at a distance". Cross swapped her gun to her right hand, pointed it at her foes head, and let loose a full clip of bullets. The alien tried to dodge, but Cross was to close, and the blood loss from its injured leg was beginning to slow it down. The bullets sunk into its head, killing it.

Cross gave a massive sigh of relief, which turned into a wheezing cough halfway through. "Owwwwwww. That freakin hurt." She reached for the knife on her belt, and began healing herself. "Think... I may… have bruised…a few….ribs there." She moaned to herself as the ether slowly began fixing her body. "Hope Lin and ...Elma are okay." Cross sat down against the wall outer wall of the roof, keeping herself out of sight from hostiles that might want to shoot her, and kept an eye on the roofs access ramp as she finished healing herself.

She couldn't hear any more gunfire, which she really really hoped meant Elma and Lin had won, and not the other way around. She didn't have to worry for long, as soon Lin's voice, sounding worried, called up to her from outside the building. "Are you okay Cross?"

Cross sighed in relief as she picked herself up and began heading downstairs. "I'll live." She answered. "The one on the roof got a couple good hits in on me, but I've patched myself up." As she rounded the corner to walk out the door, she got a good look at Lin and Elma. Lin's shield was pitted and scorched, but still seemed serviceable. Elma however, seemed completely untouched save for a small burn mark on the left side of her armor.

"You ready to go?" The white haired woman asked, her voice all business.

Cross nodded. "I'm good. I've already reloaded."

"Right then. Its an open shot across the bridge, but it looks like it's only the two on the tower to shoot at us as we go, so we should be fine if we're quick about it. They've got pens with armored suids on the other side. They must be training them for combat, but hopefully they won't be a problem if we stay as far away as we can. It looks like the plateau is made of three levels. The tower is on the lowest, our target on the third, and the bridge lets out on the middle. However, the only way I saw from the second to the lowest was down a cliff, so we're going to ignore the ones in the tower and go straight for the ramp to the top. Once we're behind the building they have Nelson in the two in the tower can't hit us."

Cross nodded, impressed by Elma's analysis of the situation. She hadn't managed to notice even half of that, and Elma had managed to do so and process it while being under fire for most of the time she'd have had to think about it. It was one thing to think about the current fight under that situation, but another entirely to think about everything that was going to come next.

"Got it!" Lin chirped cheerfully, though Cross could tell the emotion was forced. She felt bad that someone as young as thirteen had to see combat like this, but they couldn't leave Lin behind. Ultimately she was safer with them, and probably necessary. Two people just wasn't enough for this, even if one was as good as Elma.

"Let's go then." Elma said, and the three booked it to the bridge and across it, weapons drawn the whole time. They were fired at a few times from the aliens on the tower, but they hadn't had any sudden improvements in aim, so none of them were hurt and they managed to stay far enough away from the suids to avoid provoking them. As they ran up the slope to the top level, a pair of figures walked out from behind stacks of metal boxes and turned to face them. The figures were nowhere as big as the aliens they had been fighting, standing about the same height as Cross and Elma. They also weren't alive, being made of metal with motions that were stiff and robotic, and their upper halves looked identical to the torso and head of the robot they had fought upon entering the base. The two robots stood their ground, blades of light erupting from their arms.

"Get behind cover before engaging! Lin stick to the middle!" Elma commanded,as she veered toward the one on the left

Cross veered toward the one on the right. These things sleek design spoke of speed and grace, something she and Elma were much more equipped to deal with than Lin. As she ran passed, her suspicions were confirmed as the robot slashed at her with startling speed. If she hadn't been expecting the attack, she doubted she could have blocked.

She turned toward the robot as she passed it, keeping its attention on her as she began to backstep into the cover it had emerged from. Once she was behind cover from the alien gunmen in the tower she began to try and press an attack on the dual wielding robot, but its speed and twin blades made it hard. She was having trouble attacking in a way that didn't leave her exposed to a counter from one of the machines two swords. Fortunately, it didn't seem overly skilled at combat, relying almost solely on its inhuman speed, so she was able to fend of its attacks without to much trouble.

Cross grinned broadly as Lin rammed her shield into the things back, sending it flailing to the ground. ' _Not that I needed to press the attack. That's what superior numbers are for.'_ she thought as Lin followed up by slamming the lower edge of her shield down into the robot's neck, crushing it in a shower of sparks.

Elma had fared well against her own opponent, her twin swords well suited to fighting the similarly armed robot. Though it may have had speed on her, and Cross wasn't actually convinced of that since Elma seemed to be able to move freakishly fast at times, Elma was leagues more skilled, and it showed as she ably parried the machines blows while scoring hits of her own. Before Lin and Cross could even reach her to help, she had dispatched her foe.

There were no other enemies between them and their objective, only a metal door. Elma took the lead, approaching it cautiously, and all three switched to their guns as they did. The building seemed sizable, any combat inside was likely to begin at range. To all three of their surprise the door whooshed open as they stepped up next to it. Wasting no time Elma stepped into the room first, Cross and Lin fanning out behind her when they entered. On the far side of the room, up in a corner made by a series of ramps going to the upper floor of the building where three aliens, two similar to those they had been fighting, the third mostly the same but even taller still, heads above the other two, who was wearing red and grey instead of black and gold and armed with an absolutely massive gun, a gracefully curved grey metal hilt held in two hands which ended in an long wide barrel emblazoned with a helical pattern of glowing green lines.

But all three of theirs attention wasn't caught by the aliens, but by the bodies they were standing in front of. Four human bodies, wearing tattered and burnt BLADE armor, lie crumpled on the floor, the limbs twisted in unnatural angles. One head was tilted at an angle where Cross could make out the face. She could tell their deaths had been anything but swift or merciful, since judging by the expression on the dead man's face those injuries hadn't been inflicted after death.

"Cross," Elma began, her voice hard as stone and a cold as ice. "Guard the outside with Lin."

"Yes mam." She responded gravely. Lin didn't need to see those bodies any longer than she had to. No one should have to, but especially not a thirteen year old.

Before the aliens could do anything about it, Cross put a hand on Lin's back and gently pushed her out the door, which closed after they exited. The young girl was shaking. Cross's face twisted in anger. She'd wanted to be a hero when she was younger. She still did. And now it looked like she had found a villain. The massive alien inside couldn't be more than a mid ranked underling. She was going to find who ordered this and make them pay. No one deserved to go out like that.

* * *

Elma glared at the three aliens standing in front of her. She was glad Lin was gone. The poor girl must be in shock. The condition Nelson and his team had been put into before they died was barbaric. "They're all dead. You killed them all. In cold blood." She said, practically spitting the words at the three aliens looming in front of her.

The tallest one, the commander, chuckled cruelly. "Fortune did not smile upon them. You filthy earth aliens do not belong on this planet."

"You seem more fluent than the others. I presume you're in charge?" Elma questioned, barely restraining herself. Sometimes she despised the detached nature she'd nurtured over the years. She'd have liked nothing more than to end this murdering bastard for his crimes, but logically she new it was important to get as much information out of him as she could.

"I am called Glennar. I lead this squad." the alien confirmed.

"Hello Glennar, I am called Elma, and I command this squad." She nodded toward the door indicating Cross and Lin. "If this planet is your home, we apologize for intruding. We crash landed here after we were attacked. We were hoping we could negotiate a peaceful settlement" Elma looked down at the twisted corpses of Nelson and his team "in exchange for our friends, but..."

"Peaceful settlement?!" Glennar mocked. "All we can promise earth aliens is a swift death! You shall die first, then the two you sent outside in an attempt to save. Though maybe I will force you to watch their deaths first, so you learn the futility of resistance before you die."

"Right then." Elma's carefully neutral expression fell into a furious frown. "I tried. Looks like survival of the fittest it is. Fine. Seeing as you know we come from earth, I'm guessing there's a good chance we have a score to settle with you anyway."

"HA! Li…" before Glennar had even finished his second word, Elma's swords where in his torso, the whirring sounds of her mimeasome's overdrive buzzing lowly in her ears. It was a noise that promised speed and power and death.

Glennar brought the barrel of his gun crashing down on Elma's body, but she was already gone, the effects of her ghostwalker ether focus spiriting her away. "Primer" she muttered as a she ran around to the back of one of Glennar's mooks. Her swords lit up with a green glow as ether coated them, in a shade that could be best described as sickly. A suitable color for death. Elma hopped up, easily scissoring her now sharpened swords through the back of the alien's neck, which fell off his still standing body with a thud. Her target, not as skilled as his commander, hadn't even been able to react to the fight before he had died.

Glennar roared at his remaining minion to fire, which the smaller alien did with impressive speed. A storm of laser shots from Glennar's gatling gun and the other alien's rifle blanketed Elma's side of the room. Or her old side of the room, as she had gotten behind the rifle wielder before Glennar had even finished speaking. She stabbed him twice, one where she guessed his heart was, and once upward through the neck, cutting through his spine and piercing his brain.

"What was that you were saying about killing Lin and Cross while I watched?" Elma taunted as her newest kill collapsed in front of her. "Not that you could have killed them if you tried of course, but it looks like it's the other way around."

Glennar just roared in rage in response, and charged her. Elma simply sidestepped out of the way, cleaving her swords through the back of his leg as she did, stopping once she had felt her blades cut the tendons and muscles, crippling that limb. As Glennar stumbled, she slid around behind him and did the same to his other leg, sending him crashing face first to the floor.

The massive alien flipped himself face up with his arms, and tried to raise his gun to shoot Elma. But she was ready, and severed the tendons in both his arms with one fluid strike from each sword. The brute's weapon fell out of his now useless arm. He lay there on the ground, crippled, a shocked expression visible regardless of the presence of his face mask.

"Now then." Elma hissed as she stepped on to his chest and stared him in the eyes. "You're going to tell me what I want to know, or your death will be long and painful as opposed to swift and easy."

"You are filthy earth alien. Glennar will tell you nothing."

"You're wrong about one of those." Elma jammed her swords through Glennar's mask, straight into his brain. "But I believe the second. You're just lucky that unlike you, I'm a civilized person and don't condone torture."

Elma let the overdrive fade, wiped off her swords on Glennar's uniform, then headed to the door. Before she reached it, she stowed her swords, pulled out her guns, turned and shot Glennar's discarding gatling gun. It exploded with a satisfying boom that scorched the room as Elma turned and walked out the door.

* * *

Outside, Cross was laying a comforting hand on Lin's shoulder even as she kept a diligent eye on the surroundings, and the young mechanic looked somewhat recovered. Elma was glad. She hadn't meant to get Lin into something like this. It was supposed to be a simple mission, just go out and explore the wilderness some while looking for Nelson's team. Not an extended fight with a bunch of vicious xenocidal aliens. Cross had proved herself as well. The young woman had kept a level head the entire time, and had proved herself admirably in combat against enemies smarter than a wild animal. Though, Elma thought derisively, whatever race of aliens they had been fighting weren't all that bright. If they _were_ a member of the Ganglion crime syndicate like she was beginning to suspect, they had certainly been brought on board as pure muscle.

"Hey. Is it just me, or is that crate over there shaking?" Cross asked, snapping Elma out of her thoughts.

"Yeah it is." Lin agreed. "What do you think it is, some kind of wild animal?"

"I'll check it out," Cross offered. "Cover me."

Elma drew her guns and pointed them at the crate as Cross walked over and cautiously undid the latch on the crates lid, then flipped it open. It was full of some sort of large pinkish root vegetables. They had little growths on them that looked vaguely like arms and legs, and a small leafy top.

One of them, which appeared to be wearing a backpack as big as it was that had what looked like a pair of plush monster faces on stick strapped to the sides, hopped out. Once it started dancing around, Elma almost facepalmed. It wasn't a vegetable, it was some sort of small fuzzy alien with the same general shape and color as the vegetables it had been mixed in with. Two stubby legs, and two sets of arms, the lower pair short and stubby looking like the legs, the upper large, wide and vaguely wing shaped.

"Finally! Dance of freedom!" It, or he if its voice was an indication, proclaimed cheerfully as he continued to hop around. Elma snuck a glance at her companions while she waited for the small alien to calm down a little. Lin looked completely confused, while Cross was staring at the small creature with a look of utmost concentration. Finally, the vegetable shaped alien calmed down and gave a small bow to the three of them. "Tatsu thanks you!" he said.

"A talking potato? I wonder if it tastes different?" Lin asked, apparently hung up on the similarity between this Tatsu and the vegetables they had found him in. Though Elma admitted that the resemblance was awfully uncanny.

Elma holsted her guns, walked over and picked up Tatsu, despite his squirming protests. "We can continue this elsewhere. This isn't exactly a safe place to talk."

"Right, yeah." Cross agreed after shaking her head to snap herself out of her thoughts.

"Let Tatsu down! If new friends are leaving Prone base Tatsu follow on Tatsu's own two feet thank you very much!" the alien chimed in.

Elma set him down, and the four booked it out of the base the way they had came in. They encountered a few enemies on the way out, but they only came in ones and twos so where made short work of.

Finally, Elma deemed that they had ran far enough from the base that it was safe to take a break. She took the opportunity to take a good look at the small alien they had found, who was currently panting and wheezing. This, Tatsu, was apparently unused to running as far as they had, though he had done an admirable job keeping up with them despite their much longer strides. The swirly brown hair sticking out from the oddly shaped green cap made for a rather comical appearance.

"So Mr. talking potato, what's your story?" Lin asked once Tatsu looked like he had regained his breath.

"Eh eh eh!" Tatsu responded, sounding appalled while shaking his upper right arm, which he had balled up like a fist. "You are mean and cruel. Tatsu definitely not potato. Tatsu explain this to dumb and smelly Prone when they take Tatsu, but they not listen either. Prone never listen. All Nopon rue day Prone first set stinky feet on Mira."

"So you're a Nopon then?" Elma asked. "And those big aliens are called Prone? And they aren't native to this planet."

"Yes yes." Tatsu answered, bouncing up and down. "Prone are nasty stinky newcomers. If friends want more details friends must promise to protect Tatsu. Only then will Tatsu talk."

"Riiight." Lin sounded uncertain about how useful Tatsu could be. "I dunno. I think you might be more useful as field rations."

"Lin, be nice." Cross scolded, looking stern. "The guy's been held captive in a crate of vegetables by those Prone guys for a while now. And it looks like they really were going to eat him. Joking about doing the same just because of an unfortunate resemblance to a vegetable is mean." Cross turned to Tatsu, leaving Lin looking chastised. "She wouldn't actually eat you. She's just joking around because you look an awful lot like those vegetables we found you in."

"Well Tatsu doesn't think joke is funny at all!" the Nopon replied huffily. "Prone and their nasty evil buddies hunt lots of Nopon ever since coming here."

"Thier buddies? You mean other alien races?" Lin asked, looking concerned.

"Other HUNGRY alien races." Tatsu clarified. "They all gang up on Nopon. They all do terrible terrible things to Nopon."

"Well we certainly won't." Cross said confidently. "And it looks like the Prone and their 'buddies' have it out for us to. So we'd be glad to help."

"Then you'll protect Tatsu? Oh happy day! Then it's settled then, Tatsu will accompany friends back to their village."

Lin still looked skeptical. "What do you think?" She asked Elma. "Do we bring him back with us?"

Elma stared at Tatsu for a moment. "He seems harmless enough. And he'd be a good source of information on Mira and the Prone. As long as he passes the quarantine scan we can bring him back to New LA. There I'm sure Vandham will have plenty of questions for him."

"Right. Let's get that out of the way." Lin pulled out her com device and held it out towards Tatsu. After pressing a couple options on the screen to bring up the biological scanning option, she nodded. "All clear."

Tatsu began dancing around. "Than Tatsu can come? Dance of joy! New friends are friendliest friends ever!" Tatsu stopped dancing suddenly and reached into his pack with one of his upper arms and started digging around. "Ah! Tatsu knows! Tatsu has special thank you gift for friends for saving Tatsu's life. Tatsu will lend it to friends for free!"

"Lend? It's not a gift if you give it." Lin said, sounding insulted.

"Now now. Tatsu isn't a human Lin. His customs are certainly different." Cross said. "Now giving what you said I take it the Nopon never permanently transfer ownership of anything for nothing in return?"

Elma was impressed. Cross was handling this very well. She would have expected most humans to be wary and suspicious of any aliens they came across, when their races first encounter with another race was a pair of them fighting in their skies with no concern whatsoever for collateral damage, which had lead to the destruction of their homeworld and the majority of their population. They had every right to be paranoid and suspicious. At best, she expected behavior more like Lin's. Not hostile, but with a lack of experience with anything other than their own kind, many people would assume those they met would have similar values to their own. Did Cross's openness have something to with her amnesia, or was she just that much of an accepting person?

Tatsu had finished fishing around in his bag, but was keeping whatever he had dug out concealed in the grip of his hand. "Yes yes. Brown haired friend very wise! Nopon are proud merchants. Only give things for free between family. Otherwise it's insultful."

"Oh. That makes sense." Lin said sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Tatsu graciously accepts your apology." he said, somewhat haughtily. Tatsu than continued, switching to a voice that made him sound like he was giving a sales pitch. "Anyway. Friends, do you ever get lost? Get tired of bulky maps and flawed memory?"

"I do have amnesia, so I _am_ somewhat concerned about my ability to find my way around town." Cross answered.

"Well then, it's your lucky day." Tatsu opened his hand. "Preeeeesentig…. Follow Ball!" he exclaimed as a glowing orange sphere about the size of a first floated up a few feet into the air and hung there, bobbing up in down. It seemed completely incorporeal, and had a small swarm of tiny glassy orange rectangles orbiting around it randomly.

Elma raised an eyebrow. She had no idea what this thing was.

"Follow Ball is number one must have super secret Nopon item." Tatsu continued his sales pitch. "If friends get lost out in wild friends just follow ball of light to safety. And now it's yours for free! To borrow!" His voice got less excited, and more awkward. "For now...anyway."

"Really? 'Follow Ball'? That's the best name you could come up with for your super special thing?" Lin asked, looking decidedly unimpressed with the floating sphere. "And is it really gonna be all that useful? We've got pretty darn good maps. And what if it just blows up? Boom!"

"Ohhh!" Cross exclaimed, sounding excited, as she bent down and gingerly poked one of the orbiting hexagons. "Is this some sort of stable ether construct? How do you keep it powered and active without anyone using it? Are all of these…." She trailed off and closed her eyes.

Lin, Tatsu and Elma all turned to stare at her, or at least Elma assumed Tatsu was staring, his opaque glasses made it rather hard to tell. What was Cross doing?

Cross opened her eyes and beamed before Elma had time to give it much thought. "They are! They are all ether focuses! But how do you get them so thin? And whatever do you need so many for? I mean, a couple of them are to keep this thing aloft and make it move right? But you only need like, what, six for that? So what do the rest do!?"

"Geeze Lin, she sounds like you when you go on about Skells." Elma quipped. But internally she was confused. Here it was again, Cross being startlingly good with ether. Much more than she would ever have suspected any human to be.

"Yeah, well. Skells are much cooler than a floating ball of light." Lin reasoned, crossing her arms defensively.

"Ummm." Tatsu hung his head in shame. "Tatsu doesn't actually know how the Follow Ball works. Tatsu just own one."

Cross shrugged it off. "That's fine. It'll be fun to figure it out anyway. Hey Elma. Touch the Follow Ball and then think really hard of Lin alright? I want to test something." Cross then stared intently at the floating sphere of light

"Okay." Elma answered unsurely. She stretched out her arm toward the Follow Ball. The orbiting streams of floating hexagons parted around her hand as it reached toward the central glowing sphere. It felt tingly to touch, sort of like the hologram screen on the com devices. Then she thought about Lin. Suddenly the Follow Ball lept away from her fingers and floated toward Lin. The young girl eeped a little at the sudden movement and jumped back, but the floating sphere followed her.

"That's kinda freaky." Lin said as the sphere stopped a few inches from her chest.

"That's really cool!" Cross said at the same time. "Hey Elma, do that again, but this time close your eyes first."

Elma just chuckled. "You can test it out later Cross." She pointed at the setting sun. "Come on. Its getting late, and I don't want to camp out here with the Prone base so close. We won't be able to get back to the base camp today, but it's safer the further we get from the Prone."

"Tatsu agrees!" the Nopon said, bouncing up and down for emphasis. "Tatsu definitely not want to sleep where nasty Prone can get to him." He then started walking down the slope.

"Sorry." Cross said, rubbing her head awkwardly. "I got a little to excited there." as they began walking after Tatsu, Cross grabbing the Follow Ball and putting it in her pack as she passed where it had stop.

Elma grinned. "I'm used to it from Lin regarding Skells."

"Hey! Skells are cool." Lin repeated. "Man, I wish Alexa was here. She'd back me up."

Elma chuckled as they continued walking. Even if they hadn't been able to make it in time to save Nelson and his team, it wasn't a total bust. They'd found a friendly native, even if Elma was withholding judgment on exactly how useful he'd be until later, they'd gathered valuable intel, and Elma thought as she looked at Lin and Cross bantering about the usefulness of the Follow Ball, Lin got through the ordeal without getting mentally scared. Maybe not a win, but certainly not a loss.

 **Author's Notes: Couple things to talk about this time.**

 **Firstly, the scene were Elma uses overdrive. A: I tried to model it after that AWESOME cutscene where Nagi activates it against some Marnuck in Sylvalum. B: I know you cant actually use overdrive this early in the game. But that's only because Cross as amnesia and doesn't remember they are a mim. Since Elma doesn't have that issue, there is no reason she shouldn't be able to use it if the situation called for it.**

 **Secondly: Tatsu and the follow-ball. I do hope I got the Nopon speaking style down ok. As for the follow-ball, has anyone else been annoyed by the gameplay/story segregation of it being able to find things that you don't know the location of? Finding places is fine, presumably the Nopon who made it installed a good map of Mira when they did, but how does it find missing items? I'm going to try and explain it later on, so we'll see how that goes. I know I could have just left it out and avoided the issue, but it was a perfect way to introduce some Nopon culture so I wanted to include it. Also, there will be no eating Tatsu jokes. I mean really. Those are just mean and repetative.**


	11. Chapter 10

**Now, Luxaar's Xern, Skies of Cauldros**

Luxaar was busy contemplating matters in his chambers. He didn't have much else to do these days. Normally being a high ranking member of a religion/crime syndicate kept him plenty busy, but now that he and a small portion of the Ganglion fleet had ended up stuck on some abysmal backwater planet there was very little that required his attention. The Marnuck and Milsaadi were keeping themselves entertained hunting the surprisingly resilient native wildlife, the Prone being put to work setting up some mining outposts to get them the resources they needed, the Wrothians were being kept under control, and as for the Definians, well, Luxaar didn't really want to know what they or their ego-maniacal "mother" were up to as long as it didn't slow down them getting their hyperdrives fixed and off this rock. His ship and a few others had been hit by some kind of spatial distortion after the fight over the planet the Samarian's descendants were living on. When it passed, they'd found themselves in orbit around the planet they were currently on, with severe damage to their ships. They'd then landed and began repairs, and even though that had been just over a year ago, estimates from engineering gave several more months until they could begin thinking of leaving safely.

"Grandmaster Luxaar." A deep voice called out from behind him.

Luxaar turned around. A Marnuck stood in the doorway, weapons still present as was their custom, but respectfully stowed. The stalwart race made good soldiers, not as physically strong as the Prone, who were more recent additions, but vastly more intelligent than the hulking primitive brutes. And they were respectful enough to actually remember to use his proper title, always a plus in an underling. "This had better be important. I was busy with serious matters." A lie of course, but appearances were important.

"Sir. The base at the southeastern end of the continent two south from here have sent a report that they have captured humans."

Luxaar blinked. More humans? The one they had found, had certainly been _interesting_ , and come to think of it he really should ask Goetia how that particular investigation was going, but if there were _more..._

The Marnuck continued, snapping Luxaar's attention back to the matter at hand. "They attempted to interrogate the prisoners, but they refused to break, so they killed them."

"WHAT!" Luxaar screamed. "Those imbeciles! If there truly are humans here, than we need to know more. The prisoners should have been sent back here for interrogation by experts! What is the name of the commander? I want his head for his stupidity."

"A prone captain named Glennar sir." The Marnuck then actually looked a bit worried. "Unfortunately, he is already dead. It seems a trio of humans stormed the base in search of their missing fellows and killed him."

Luxaar grinded his teeth. So there _were_ more of them. "I want that base reinforced. I don't know what incompetence lead to it being infiltrated by a mere three humans, but I don't want it happening again. Do it yourself if you have to. And inform the engineers that their efforts are to be shifted to military production and getting our swiftest vessel space worthy. We must stamp out the human scum here, and inform the rest of the Ganglion about this infestation should they be too ingrained to stamp out with our limited forces. Get some scouts out looking for them to."

"Of course Grandmaster." The Marnuck bowed slightly, before turning to leave the room.

Luxaar grimaced once the soldier had left. It looked like his days were going to get a lot busier, and for the worst possible reason.

* * *

 **Now, Noctilum, Sunlit Spring**

L'cirufe, or L as he preferred to go by these days, those Nopon were always messing up the proper pronunciation so better to have them only say the part they could consistently get right than butcher the rest of it, was walking southward in Noctilum. He wasn't carrying anything save for the clothes he was wearing, but it wasn't like good food or water was at all lacking in the vibrant

jungles if one knew where to look. And it's not like _he_ of all people needed to worry about getting attacked.

If L was being honest, he'd admit that he was going southward because he was bored, but he would be much more likely to say that it was for a "potential business venture" or somesuch if he was asked. Unless it was a Nopon who asked, cause then the devious little merchants would probably try and follow him. Strange things had been going on around Mira these days, mainly the amount of things coming down from the skies. A bunch of ships up to the north east almost a year ago, which apparently landed and made claim to the old ruins that dominated the volcanic wasteland. He had originally thought about making his way up there to check it out despite his general dislike of the area, but he'd heard from the Nopon that the aliens were, and he was paraphrasing heavily here, a bunch of vicious uncultured thugs. Definitely not the kind of people he preferred to associate with.

Potentially more promising, a few months ago, a large amount of objects had come crashing down all around the continent cluster. From his point of view, it seemed that the largest had landed in the grasslands to the east, but he'd spotted another, much smaller, object come down in the southern section of the jungle. He'd dithered about for a while, slightly concerned by the possibility that whatever the newest set of arrivals were, they were as dangerous as the ones who landed up north. It wasn't like he was likely to get _killed_ or something, but well, it _had_ been a while since he'd had to fight anything.

His curiosity and boredom had finally given out, and he'd headed off to investigate. First the smaller object to the south, then he'd head off east to the large one, unless the first one proved too dangerous. In that case he'd just call off the whole thing.

He'd been walking for a good few days now, and just yesterday had made his way past the great bay in which one of the ancient war-machines slumbered. Now there was something he definitely didn't want to mess with. Those things were the other reason he didn't want to head up north, there were still several active ones carrying on in their ancient patrol routes over the spore covered dunes in the central continent.

Finally, L crested a ridge, and looked down into a small basin. Up against the wall on the far end rested a large black object, partially buried in the ground from its impact. Despite that, it seemed remarkably intact, and as he scrambled down the cliff and ran over to it he giddily thought about all he might be able to learn from it. When he reached its base, he looked up. Two symbols, one a rectangle made of red and white bars surrounding a smaller blue rectangle coated with simple white stars, the other a stylized rendition of a planet on a blue shield. The rectangle had some blocky script under it that he didn't recognize, and the shield had a few of the same symbols at its top.

L scrambled over the object, excitedly looking for some way in, or someway to use it. Finally, his hand touched a panel on it which slid aside, revealing a computer screen and keyboard. The screen lit up, revealing more of the script that adorned the front of the object. It appeared to be some sort of catalogue. L's eyes practically shined in joy as he exclaimed "Oh how exciting! So many new things to learn!" Sure he might have to learn a new language first, but that was joy in and of itself. And it's not like he hadn't done the same with the Nopon when he'd first encountered them. He eagerly began pouring over the data, trying to find somewhere in it where he could get some references to start piecing the language together.

He spent hours on it, not even noticing that night had set until well after the sun had dipped below the horizon. He didn't mind though, it had been so long since there had been something new for him to learn. Prior to this recent spat of new arrivals only one thing on Mira truly remained a mystery to him, but he wasn't exactly about to go and ask the Ruler of Fates for an interview. L finally drifted off to sleep, his dreams a jumbled mess of excitement about all he was going to be able to learn.

* * *

 **A Few Days ago, Cauldros, O'rrh Sim Castle Ruins Interior**

Goetia stared at the tank they were keeping the captive human in. The disgusting Samarian spawn was grievously wounded, though fortunately for it, and for them, its body appeared to be mechanical, rather than flesh and blood. She turned to a Milsaadi technician hovering over a display screen. "How long until you can fix it?"

"A few days perhaps." the silicate responded, her voice having the same synthetic quality as low quality vocal synthesizers, but with more emotion in it than a machine could ever manage. Goetia thought it strange to listen to, and she was unsure how much she liked it, similar to the Milsaddi themselves. The silicon based species was one of the few members of the Ganglion who had an independent power base, so despite, or perhaps because of their effectiveness she was never sure how much she could trust them. "More if you wish to be absolutely sure it survives. The technology used to make this body is surprisingly advanced for such a simple race."

Goetia scowled. "We need it alive and functioning. That 'surprisingly advanced technology' is exactly why. Between the body and the crashed mech we found it inside this humans seem to have access to technology far in advance of what its race should. Knowing why, and what other things the scum have that they shouldn't is imperative if there are more running around. We can't afford to go in unprepared when eradicating them."

The Milsaadi was unshaken by Goetia's diatribe. "Yes yes. Your 'holy mission.' Very well. I shall proceed carefully. Perhaps they shall be worthy prey for our own rites."

"I'll leave you to it then." Goetia said, venom dripping from her words as she left the room. Damn those silicates. How dare they mock the Ganglion's sacred duty. She was going to need to go outside and vent her frustration soon. It wouldn't do so slow down repairs even more.

* * *

 **A Few Months ago, Second Fleet Flagship, Near Qlurian Border**

Commander Reina approached the doors to Admiral Garen's office. She had never before had the privilege, or perhaps it was unfortunate fate given the current circumstances, of visiting the Admiral's office prior to now, and she was properly awed by the mere doors to the room. Elegantly carved from the finest white crystals from the homeworld, the doors parted down the middle and slid into the wall, permitting her access to the grandly accented office. The furniture, bookshelves with actual books, some chairs and tables and grand desk, was as elegantly carved as the doorway, but made from the finest wood, imported directly from Qlur she guessed. The back wall of the room was a single massive viewscreen which currently displayed a view of surrounding stars, making the already impressively large room seem even bigger.

Between the sheer size of the room, which was massively large for being on a warship, and the furniture which must have cost more than she could make in years, the sheer majesty of the room served to enhance the already impressive presence of the man sitting behind the desk. Admiral Garen, commander of the second fleet was on the most powerful people in the entire navy, with only the admiral of the first fleet and the five members of high command above him. His light green hair, hinting at a northern heritage, was kept short, and his similarly green eyes where as cold as the ice from the northern coasts his ancestors probably hailed from. He was dressed impeccably, his uniform decorated with an almost uncountable number of awards, and appeared to be as crisp as the day it was made. It had Reina feeling self conscious about her own uniform, which she was sure was positively shabby looking by comparison.

"Commander. Your report if you would?" the Admiral asked, his voice as cold as his eyes.

Reina barely managed to stop herself from gulping before she started speaking. "Yes sir. Search team three-eight-three-seven reported in this morning that they had located the traitor. They found her on one of the ships that had escaped the primitive planet over which we battled the Ganglion. The ship was found many light years from its point of origin, at a distance that could have only been traversed in the time they had through the use of stolen technology. When they happened upon the ship, it was partially enveloped in some sort of distortion, but the sensors on search team three-eight-three-seven's ships were insufficient to determine anything about it. The team choose to engage, first at long range, but the distortion had a dampening effect on the weapons, so close ranged fighters were deployed. They encountered resistance, and there were some casualties, but ultimately succeeded in lethally wounded the primitive ship."

Reina paused briefly, nervous about the next part. She doubted it would make the Admiral happy. "Unfortunately, before they were able to confirm the ship's destruction, or the traitor's death, the distortion increased and the primitive ship vanished from all sensors. No members of search team three-eight-three-seven was lost due to the increase in the distortion."

Admiral Garen gave a contemplative 'hmmm' before saying anything. "High Command currently has the capture or death of the traitor as a high priority objective, second only to the continued efforts to stamp out any and all Ganglion influences near our sector of space. Knowing this," Admiral Garen steepled his fingers and looked her right in the eyes, "What would you do right now if you were me?"

Reina was unable to keep herself from stuttering nervously when she responded. "M-m-me Admiral? Your asking what _I_ would do?"

The admiral smirked slightly. "I could have asked for this report to be submitted electronically, there was no need for you to deliver it in person."

Reina stared, she had been wondering about that, but was much to nervous to bring it up.

Admiral Garen continued. "Your service records are exemplary Commander. It is my opinion that you are due for a promotion. Consider this a test to determine if I'm correct."

Now Reina did gulp. She'd be a captain. Her own ship to command, she had never dreamed she would get this far when she first joined. She furrowed her brow, considering the problem carefully before responding. "Well, the traitor was last identified on a critically damage ship, which was caught in some sort of distortion in otherwise empty space. In most circumstance, that would be more than enough evidence to declare her dead. However with how seriously you've said High Command was taking this matter, I don't think that is sufficient now. I would recommend that a full science team be sent to investigate the area, and the the combat logs be poured over, in an attempt to learn everything possible about the reported distortion. Given the interest the Ganglion seem to have with the primitive race in question, two squadrons should be sent with the science team in case they show up looking for the primitive ship. And if necessary, the logs could be sent back the homeworld, and the scientists there can look at them." "Lastly, I'd," She paused, she had felt fairly confident in her previous suggestions, but wasn't as sure about her final one. She eventually decided to make it anyway. "I'd ask for an ether master to be sent investigate the distortion with the science team."

As the Admiral regarded her coolly, she worried that she had made a mistake with the last idea. Most members of the navy, and for that member most of their entire race, regarded those who extensively pursued the use of ether with some suspicion. Asking for one's involvement in matters may have amounted to political suicide. Finally the admiral smiled slightly, and Reina let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Very good. That was exactly what I would have done. And it took some guts to recommend the last one. I'm impressed." Admiral Garen handed her a small computer chip. "This has a copy of my signature. Go make the necessary arrangements to have what you suggested be carried out, using my signature to authorize it all. Once you're done with that, I should have the paperwork for your promotion through."

Reina saluted. "At once sir. Thank you very much sir."

"No need to thank me. You're simply being rewarded for your efforts." Admiral Garen dismissed.

"Of course sir. Will there be anything else?"

Admiral Garen waved her out of the room. "That's all. You're dismissed Commander."

 **Authors Notes: Apologies for the delay on this one, Chapter 10 was originally going to be something completely different and longer, but I didn't like how it going, so I moved these events up a chapter, so that I could get something out this week.**

 **Reina and Garen are naturally OC's. Their story-line isn't going to have much to do with the main plot, but will be used to cover some of my interpretation of the backstory events.**

 **I'm predicting questions about the whole Ganglion having a captured human thing. That is not actually being pulled out of nowhere, I actually do have somewhere in the game to justify this plot point. Can't really talk about it yet without spoilers, but it definitely isn't coming out of nowhere.**


	12. Chapter 11

**Authors note: Apologies for how long its taken to get this out. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble (I'm still not very happy with it, I'm currently debating going and rewriting sections of it), and work shifts being 10 hours long and running three different D &D campaigns doesn't leave much time for writing. Hopefully I'll be back on a once a month schedule now.**

Despite the easy banter Lin and Cross had fallen into, the rest of their trip back to base camp had an underlying tension to it. Despite there being no obvious sign of pursuit by the Prone, none of them felt completely safe as they traveled, always wondering if the hostile aliens might be just out of sight behind them.

Fortunately, their worries were for naught, and after spending a night sleeping in a hollow Elma found in the side of the cliffs, the three B.L.A.D.E members and Tatsu managed to make it back to the base camp safely. Elma immediately disappeared to talk to the base commander and get on a secure radio with NLA, leaving Tatsu, Lin and Cross to their own devices.

"Wellll…" Lin droned. "Who wants some food?"

"That'd be nice." Cross answered. The rations they had when they were out hadn't been all that bad, but they paled in comparison to a home cooked meal.

"Oh! Me me!" Tatsu agreed while hopping up and down in excitement. "Tatsu hasn't had a good meal in forever!"

"Cool! I'll go cooked something up." Lin said. She sounded cheerful, but given what they had just gone through, Cross was willing to bet the young girl was just throwing up a facade and had been ever since the adrenaline had worn off.

Cross followed Lin as she walked to the camps small kitchen area. "I'll help. I've got to learn how to cook decent meals when I'm out on a mission without you right?"

Lin seemed unsure about the idea. "Uhhh. I guess so. But, shouldn't someone stick with Tatsu?"

Cross turned to Tatsu. "Hey Tatsu, why don't you go around camp and introduce yourself? Everyones only interactions with aliens so far is getting our home destroyed, so you should go make a good impression."

"Ohhh. Good idea." Tatsu nodded. "Mamapon always says that the first step to being a good merchant is to make a good first impression!" With that, the nopon walked away, toward a group of B.L.A.D.E's who had been eyeing him warily.

Cross turned back to Lin. "See, he's fine. Let's go cook." She then walked off toward the kitchen

"Sure, I suppose." Lin said wearily, as she followed Cross.

The two cooked, roast suid with a side of grilled vegetables, in relative silence for a while, only talking when Lin needed to give Cross instructions. Finally Cross broke the rhythm they had going and asked, "Are you ok?"

Lin turned away from what she was doing and looked at Cross. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"It's fine if you aren't you know." Cross replied, ignoring Lin's question. "You have a right to be, after what we saw back there."

Lin sighed. "I… it's just. I know the world...universe I guess, is a scary place, and things don't always end well. I mean, Earth is gone, my parents are gone….." The young girl trailed off.

Cross waited patiently for Lin to continue, the young girl had never mentioned her parents before, but from their conspicuous absence Cross had figured they hadn't made it off Earth.

Lin continued "Anyway.. I knew that stuff, but even then, when I saw what those Prone had done to Nelson and his team. I...I….I don't get it. Why would they do that!"

Cross walked over and gave the young girl a hug. "I don't know. I suspect they have some sort of reason, but whatever it is, it's not one I'm going to accept. So you don't worry about a thing. Me and Elma will take care of this. I won't promise no-one else is going to die, but I will promise I'll do everything I can to stop the Prone and whatever other aliens they are working with. And if you ever need to talk about it, you can always come to me. I may not be the best at this kinda thing, but sometimes the most important part is to just that something's bothering you."

Lin nodded, and pulled her way out of the hug. "Thanks." She sniffed a little, but Cross thought she looked much better, more relaxed. "So, let's finish up those vegetables huh?"

Cross chuckled, and got back to work.

The three made it back to NLA with no problems, leaving South Janpath Base Camp on high alert against the nearby Prone base. Elma left Cross, Lin and Tatsu to their own devices at the entrance to the city, trusting the two humans to look after the small human. She had other matters to attend to.

In short order she made her way to blade tower, and after a short wait for the elevator, was in a private conference room where Vandham, Nagi and Maurice were all seated at a small circular table. Elma wryly noted that Vandham was seated across from Maurice, the two never had been able to get along. As the door sealed itself shut behind her, she sat down at the table's fourth seat.

Maurice spoke once she had done so. "Let's not waste time. Do you think these hostile aliens, the Prone I believe you called them, are with the Ganglion?"

"Most likely." Elma answered. "It's impossible to say for sure right now of course, the ones we met weren't exactly interested in talking. But the circumstantial evidence is there. There technology is on the same level as what the Ganglion employ, though perhaps a bit lower. But that fits, since they didn't seem to bright, and it's a common Ganglion tactic to rope less developed species into their organization by giving them weapons far above their technology level. Mainly, of course, is the fact that they very clearly said they wanted to kill all "Earth Aliens". I don't know of any group other than the Ganglion that would even _care_ about you, let alone want to destroy you all and know where you are from."

Nagi sighed. "It's to be war then, isn't it."

Elma nodded in agreement. "Most likely. I've never heard of the Ganglion being so determined before. As I've mentioned before, they wouldn't normally send such a large amount of ships up against my people's fleets. Especially not for a single planet. The only way I can think of for a war to be avoided at this point is if that base is all there is of them here on Mira, or at least most of them."

Vandam tapped a button on the side of the table. The surface of the table shone, and an incomplete hologram of the base Elma, Cross and Lin had raided appeared above it, based off of recordings Elma had pulled from her Mim. He looked it over for a moment, then spoke. "Doesn't look like we're going to have that much luck. There's too much construction going on for this to be anything other than an expansion. No reason to make something like this unless you've got a lot more people and want more places for them to be useful. The geologists say there's probably some good mineral posits down south of Janpath lake, I'd bet there setting that place up as a base to conduct mining operations from."

A chorus of agreement chimed out from the other three before Nagi spoke. "The next question then. What do we do about it? I recommend a strike team. Take it out while it's still under construction. Or at least damage it." He pointed toward one edge of the hologram. "It looks like the area back here is much more finished. It may be too risky to go any further."

Maurice drummed his fingers on the edge of the table in thought. "As much as I am an advocate for peace, I feel that the destruction of our planet and the capture, torture and execution of our people is more than ample evidence these aliens won't be willing to negotiate. I'll agree."

"I agree to." Vandham said, slamming his fist on the table to punctuate his point. "It's time we started paying these bastards back, even if I don't think it's going to amount to much in the end. Any disagreements Elma?"

"No. I think it's the safest decision. They already know we are here, they already know our tech level, and the base is uncomfortably close to NLA. We should try and remove it while we can."

Nagi gazed at the hologram. "Three teams should do it. All in combat skells. Any recomendations for a leader Vandham?"

Vandham replied immediately. "Frye Christoph, Interceptor. He's got a military background, and has really made a distinction for himself here in the field already. Though his nickname is a bit odd. The 'Killer Ostrich' or something like that."

Elma blinked. "Isn't that a large flightless bird? Is it even a predator?"

Vandham shrugged. "Hell if I know what's up with that. Said it was a strange name didn't I?"

"Very well." Maurice pulled out his tablet, and started typing on it. "I'll send Eleonora a message telling her to put it on the mission board. Or do we want to keep this a secret?"

Elma winced internally at the mention of Eleonora's name. The blond woman was much too friendly seeming for someone who ran the kind of thing she did behind the scenes. She shook the feeling off, since now was not the time for such thoughts, and waved her hand dismissively. "There's no point. The South Janpath Base Camp crew already know about it, and by now they've told someone else. Better to have it be known we're doing something about the situation."

"We're in agreement then. Vandham, any pre-reqs you want on this other than access to a combat worthy Skell?"

Vandam thought for a bit before answering. "Ten, no, make it fifteen successful combat missions out in the field. And priority for anyone originally in the military. And make it clear that they are to disengage at the first sign of even moderate resistance. I'm not losing any more men if I don't have to."

Maurice nodded, typed some more than set down his tablet. "Done. Eleonora will have it on the board in the morning. That brings us to our third topic of business, the alien Elma and her team brought back with them. What do you know about it Elma?"

"Well, he call himself Tatsu. He claims that his species, the Nopon,are natives to this world. I don't recognize the race, so he certainly could be, but it's not like I'm familiar with every race in Samarrian space, there's just too many of them. So he might be lying. Either way, he's not dangerous. I doubt he could win a fight against an ovis."

Maurice stared her in the face. "I'll be blunt. Could he be usefull? With the high likelihood that there being Ganglion on this planet, we can't afford freeloaders."

Elma was about to speak, before Nagi angrily interrupted her. "Really Maurice? He's one alien, not even a very large one. Are we going to be that heartless?" He looked like he could have gone on, but Elma started talking. She knew how this went. Maurice never voiced his actual opinions, always playing, as the humans called it, 'devil's advocate', playing the no nonsense us above the rest of existence anything for my species leader. Despite how long she'd known him, she hadn't figured out why, she suspected it how he kept himself in check, but she wasn't sure, and had no reason or need to ask the man.

"Maurice is right Nagi. We don't have the luxury of freeloaders right now. But it doesn't matter anyway. As I'm sure the _Director General Chausson_ ," she barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes as she said the title, "has already figured out, if his people are natives they could prove an invaluable source of intel." She could have sworn she saw Maurice smirk before he answered.

"So long as we are all the same page on the matter. Is there anything else you feel we should know about him?"

"I'm not sure how relevant it is, but he gave, or loaned that is, us a reward for rescuing him. The "Follow Ball" he called it. It seems to...find things."

Nagi raised an eyebrow. "He loaned a reward?"

"They are a race of merchants. They only give things to family members. Doing so to anyone else is rude. Though I can't take credit for the revelation, it was Cross who made it."

"Huh." Vandham grunted. "She's full of surprises isn't she."

Elma nodded. "Yes. Speaking off, the 'Follow Ball' is some sort of ether based device. I'm not knowledgeable on the subject myself to comment, but Cross was impressed. At this point I'm willing to spare myself the headache and just take her word on it. I'll have her write up a report onec she's had a chance to give it a good look."

Vandham laughed and smacked her and Nagi on the backs. "'Have her write up a report'? You're becoming just like Nagi here. All formal and governmenty."

Maurice stood up. "Well, with that, I assume we're done here?" He waited for them to confirm before continuing. "I'll be in my office then. I'm going to have a lot more paperwork to do now."

"Ha! Sucks to be you don't it." Vandham said grinning as he to got up. "Hey Nagi, how bout we go get a drink."

Nagi smiled. "Sounds good Jack. I've got a nice bottle of sake waiting."

Vandham smiled wider. "Sounds fantastic."

Maurice clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Unfortunately, most of the paperwork is B.L.A.D.E. related Vandham. And in light of recent events, it needs done today. _And_ your part is going to take until at least eleven."

"Wah. Wahhh." Vandham sputtered.

Maurice turned to Nagi and Elma. "Mine however, should still only take till ten. See you then for drinks Nagi, Elma?"

Nagi smiled, barely restraining a laugh. "Sounds good to me. You in Elma?"

Elma rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered how they managed to keep the city together, with Vandham and Maurice's constant bickering. It helped that they at least kept it out of the public eye she supposed. "Only if you bring the watermelon flavoring. Makes it almost taste like a drink from home." She got up and left the room, smirking at the still sputtering Vandham. "See you tomorrow sir." Vandham just glared at her and muttered something about traitors.

Elma smiled once no one was looking. She didn't joke around often, but it did feel good to get a zinger in on occasion. And it helped keep Vandham in his place. The former chief engineer needed to be reminded that there were people who could and would fire back at his occasionally, "over the top", personality.

Next on the list of things today, go to the Mimesome maintenance center. The robot bodies may have been much more durable than one of flesh and blood, but even they had their limits. And using overdrive strained those limits, sometimes to the breaking point, so it was standard procedure to get yourself checked out every time you used it. The building was housed nearby B.L.A.D.E. Tower, at the southernmost end of Division Drive and directly across from the Frontier Nav offices. It didn't look like much from the outside, but it housed some of the most sophisticated diagnostics tools in the entire city, second only to the ones kept in the secure hanger down on the lower level.

Elma walked inside, and explained the situation to the technicians on staff. They hurried her along to a diagnosis room, and had her lay back on a clinically bare table while they began thoroughly examining her for any damage that might have occurred when she activated overdrive.

In most circumstances involving analysis and repairs on a machine, she'd have like to follow along with what was being done. But for something as delicate as this, it was best to leave things to the experts, and for once, that wasn't her. She may have originally been an engineer, but she'd worked on spacecraft, not on mimeasomes. She'd simply, well stolen, a large variety of technical manuals and similar things when shed gone to Earth, the technology behind Mim's amongst it, as well as a set of equipment needed to make a mim for the purposes of blending in if that became necessary, which it had

The tech wasn't even her own species originally, just something they'd acquired from one of the countless other races inhabiting the Samarian Federation. It wasn't used often, mostly for science expeditions to areas to dangerous to go in person; the use for military purposes, while perhaps obvious, was considered "dishonorable". Plus, there was the fact that any kind of cut in communications between the bodies outside of precisely controlled circumstances,, tended to end disastrously, resulting in a backlash of information to the original body that typically caused so many nerves to fire at once that something went catastrophically wrong. It wasn't a problem for the humans, as they currently didn't have brains to fry, just data stored in a computer, but it prevented her from simply offing herself and waking back up in the Lifehold Core, thereby solving their most pressing issue.

They sadly couldn't trace the signal either, as it worked on a form of quantum entanglement. Great for transmission speed, being instantaneous, but terrible if you wanted to trace the signal since there wasn't one. She frankly didn't understand it to well beyond that, and neither had the human scientists and engineers who had made the mimeasomes for the ELC, but that was the great thing about instruction manuals, you didn't have to understand the science to use them, just follow the steps.

She sighed. She also didn't understand why the humans insisted on calling the quantum entanglement device used an ansible. She suspected it was some sort of popular culture reference, but had never bothered to look into it or ask. It had never seemed important.

"Mam," one of the technicians voices called out softly, his voice snapping her out of her reverie. "Your examination is done. I'm sorry to say we found some straining in the mock muscle fibers and tendons aroud your knees. It's not going to have an immediate impact on your mim's performance, but it could grow worse with just standard use, and another activation of overdrive might cause the affected parts to immediately fail." He flipped a tablet around and showed her a picture of the strained areas highlighted red. "I'd suggest we get this taken care of now, but putting it off for a short time won't hurt. I understand you most likely have important work to attend to, and this will take a few days."

Elma spent a moment looking at the damage. The tech's assessment was spot on as far as she could tell. Not immediately debilitating, but certainly not something she should go into combat with. She really should just go and have it fixed now, but….

She sighed. It had been so long since she'd had time where she could sit back and relax with the few people who knew she wasn't a human. "I'll finish up my work and come back in the morning then." She said, her voice outwardly as calm as normal. On good thing, if you could call it that, about coming to earth was that she had gotten much better at lying. She thought she'd even be able to manage lying to her mother now, if they ever got the chance to see eachother again.

She waved at the technicians and made her way out of the building. The sun was starting to begin its descent back east, and some rain clouds were rapidly approaching from the south. Just enough time to finish her paperwork and still make it to Nagi's in time for drinks. Oh, and message Lin telling her she'd be out busy for a couple days. No need to have the young girl worrying over her about the her upcoming mimeasome maintenance, and if past experience had taught her anything, it was that when Nagi pulled out the drinks, not even a mim enhanced alcohol tolerance would keep you sober. Well, unless you turned some features off, but forgetting things you didn't want to think about was the point when you were drinking wasn't it? And right now she had managed to get a few things on her mind she'd rather not think about. Ah the glories of a mechanical device that was meant to replicate a living body as much as possible.

 _A little over a week later_

Her blade bit into the leg of the cinicula she and three fourths of Irina's team where fighting. It was a young one, so it was only twice as tall as she was, and it gave an insectile cry as the appendage buckled, sending the beam of ether she could sense it was about to fire from its mouth off target.

Cross liked combat. It was a fantastic way to not think about things that she really didn't want to.

Gwin was out front, concentrating on holding the things attention with his hefty sword, one of the Sakuraba standard series, but he spared a brief "Thanks!" for Cross for throwing the indigen's last attack off. Irina was off to his side, firing away at it with her assault rifle, while keeping an eye on Gwin incase she needed to patch him up, or renew the protective either field she had set around him. Cross had been fairly impressed, and very surprised, at Irina's skill at using ether to heal people. It wasn't something she expected the cold and taciturn woman to be adept in. Not that she'd ever say that to her face; she'd seen Gwen get a death glare once now, and wanted none of that.

Like how she still couldn't remember anything new about her past. That was something that was starting to get to her. Better to not think about it and focus on the enemy.

The last member of their squad, Marcus, was in the one Skell(Cross thought it was a Formula model, but wasn't sure) Irina's team owned that wasn't in the shop, and was currently handling the other two young ciniculas that they were hunting. The plan had originally been to take them one at a time, but the creatures had kept to close together for that to work. Cross had been unsure about fighting alongside one of the giant machines, worried about how her lingering uneasiness about the giant machines would affect her combat skills, but it turned out having one block most of a volley of spikes the ciniculas fired from their shells was an absolutely marvelous way to build trust.

Or how she was having zero success making sense of how the Follow Ball worked. She had been so eager at first, thinking this was something she was good at, something she could call her own. But after four straight days of trying to figure out what the swarm of hexagonal ether foci that comprised the construct did had yielded nothing beyond confirmation of her initial guess that, yes, six were used to make it float and move. She hadn't even had the chance work on making a copy of the healing focus on her utility knife, since Lin hadn't managed to procure her a set of jewelers tools yet.

All things she definitely wasn't thinking about as Gwin let loose a flurry of quick strikes at one of the cinicula's tusks, cleaving it clean off. The beast stumbled from the pain, and Cross jammed her sword into its side and drug it sideways. A gash opened up, and purple blood leaked out. Already off balance from having its tusk chopped of, the cinicula staggered away from her. Cross followed, ramming her shoulder into it and sending it sprawling. Gwin switched over to his assault rifle, and both he and Irina fired a grenade at the insects face, killing it.

Cross looked over at Marcus, who seemed to have already finished off one of his opponents, and was in the process of impaling the second with a curved photon saber. She nodded, and turned to Irina. "So. What are we going after next?"

Before Cross even knew what happened, Gwin and Irina had manhandled her over to Marcus's skell, now and vehicle mode, and had begun dragging her up onto it. "Huh?!" she managed to blurt out, as Gwin plopped her on one of the machines shoulders. "What's going gone."

Irina nimbly climbed onto the other shoulder, and Gwin pulled himself up onto the same shoulder Cross was seated on. "We're heading back to NLA." Irina said in her usual no nonsense tone.

"What? Why? I'm good to go." Cross waved her assault rifle out at the open fields on her left. "I've still got plenty of ammo left."

Gwin rubbed his head awkwardly. "Yeah, ummm. Cross, I think you need a break."

"Gwin's right." Irina tapped the cockpit window with a balled fist, and Marcus began driving. "You've been trying to hard. You need a break. And besides, we've finished clearing out all the indigens we needed to for the setup of the base camp north of Janpath Lake. Its team to report back in."

Marcus voice came out of the skells external speakers. "Irina's right of course. Everyone needs breaks."

Cross sighed. A break was the last thing she needed. If she took a break she'd start dwelling on not having her memory and associated problems again. "Really. I'm fine. I'm sure there is something else we can do while we're out here?"

Irina didn't respond. Or at least not verbally. Instead she just glared at Cross. Her silver-grey eyes were cold. If Cross didn't know better she'd have sworn Irina was using some sort of ether based mental attack to try and scare the crap out her. The fact that it was working despite Irina not doing that just made it worse. Finally managing to pull her gaze from the icy grey pits of despair, Cross muttered. "Ok, ok. I yield. Let's go back to NLA."

Gwin patted her on the back. "You get used to the glare."

"I'd really rather not." Cross was sure she saw Irina smirk out of the corner of her eye as she answered Gwin.

"Oh…that's…..good? Because you don't actually get used it it."

Cross sighed again. "You're not very good at comforting people are you?"

"Not really, no." he replied nonchalantly. "That's Mathias's job. Shame he's busy with Aisha right now."

They got back to NLA a few days later, and she bid Irina, Gwin and Marcus farewell after they stopped by the mission board to pick up their rewards from Eleonora. Instead of returning to the barracks, Cross began to wander the city. She wasn't in the mood for a conversation right now, and Lin was sure to beg for all of the details of her trip. Ughhh. She was such a hypocrite. She'd made a big deal to the young girl about talking about your problems, and her she was, not knowing how to talk about hers.

' _The worst thing_ ', she thought as she wandered her way through the commercial district, ' _is how nothing seems familiar. None of the buildings, streets, none of the city at all. It's only the small simple boring things; sandwiches, grass, the stuff you'd find everywhere, that doesn't manage to feel new somehow. It's like I've never been here before in my life.'_ A small gust of wind from a passing car hit her. ' _And there's next to no wind in the city.'_ Cross looked up. The high wall of NLA loomed around her. They kept the city safe, but they also kept the wind out. She missed the feeling of the wind through her hair already. Maybe….. ' _Well. It's worth a try I suppose.'_

Not to long after, she had made her way back to the service tunnel she'd originally entered the city through. Not only that, she'd gotten directions from a passing tech on how to use it to get to the top of NLA's wall. There was a service hatch in the ceiling about one third of the way down the tunnel that lead to a ladder that lead to the top.

It was easy enough to find it if you were looking for it, and once she opened it up a small ladder dropped down, preventing her from needing to jump the first few yards. Cross was glad. She didn't think she could manage the kind of jumps Elma used occasionally in combat.

She stared up, the square maintenance shift lit dimly by scattered lights running up one edge. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." Cross said quietly. "Thats a long way down if I fall." She shook her head. "Comon. I've fought murderous aliens just over a week ago. A little climb is nothing." She began climbing.

She was grateful to reach the top, and if how long it had taken was a good indication of just how high she was now, very very glad she'd managed to never looked down on her way up. Once she poked her head into the open air she was welcomed by a crisp breeze. Smiling, Cross pulled herself the rest of the way out, and found a nice slanted piece of metal to rest her back against and sat down, staring at the sky. The sky still struck her as bizarre, as the sun drifted back west, and the moons hung stationless in the sky. It was actually comforting though. The sky was supposed to be bizarre though. Even though NLA had been on Mira for a few month now, Cross still noticed people around town do a double take when they looked at it.

Cross let out a contented sigh, slipping her hands into her pockets to check if she had any food in them. She only found the Follow Ball. She drug it out with a much less happy sigh. The mild warmth of its inactive form filled her hand. "You make no sense, you know that?" she huffed.

"I hope that wasn't directed at me." a familiar voice said from off to her side. Elma was standing at the exit of the service shaft, wearing jeans and a red hoodie instead of her normal combat attire.

"Elma! What are you doing here?" Cross all but shouted. The follow ball zipped off toward Elma as Cross said her name. Cross groaned internally. The thing could get jittery, and start working if you thought to hard about something or someone, even if you weren't trying to use it. Like when they surprised you apparently

Elma deftly caught the orange sphere as walked over and sat down next to cross. "Making sure you are alright obviously. Irina told me how hard you have been pushing yourself this week."

"How'd you know I'd be up here?" Cross asked, hoping to avoid the topic Elma was trying to lead them into. She'd really rather not talk about it.

"Irina also told me how much you seemed to enjoy just standing in the wind. I hedged a bet and guessed you would be at the best place in NLA to feel some." Elma was silent for a moment, but it looked like she still had something to say, so Cross kept silent. "You're worried about your memories aren't you." It wasn't so much a question as a statement. One Elma's tone of voice said she wanted a reply to.

"Yeah." Cross admitted, voice quiet.

"Worried you'll never get them back?"

"Yeah."

"You've been throwing yourself into B.L.A.D.E. work to distract yourself from the issue?"

Man, Elma had her problem down exactly. "Yeah."

"Hmmm." Elma looked thoughtfully at the sky. "Why do you like the wind so much?"

Cross blinked. That was not where she was expecting the conversation to go. "Ummm."

"Take some time to think about it. I think it might help you remember something."

Cross nodded, despite that Elma wasn't looking at her anymore. Why did she like the wind so much? Sure it felt nice, but that didn't feel like all of it. "I…" Cross trailed off, trying to think. As she did, a small smile spread across her face.

"I think…. I think there was a hill by our house. When I was a kid and lived with my parents. I'd go up there every evening with my mom. There'd be a breeze blowing in off the….ocean? Maybe a large lake? But we'd sit there, in the breeze. It was our time, away from….my two brothers? Yeah….I had two younger brothers. Where we could talk about… you know… girl stuff." Cross chuckled awkwardly. "I… I don't think we did it for very long. I wasn't interested in typical girly things for very long. But it was nice….the wind reminds me of my mom." Tears ran down Cross's cheeks.

Elma patted her on the back, smiling. "See. Your memories aren't gone. Just buried. You'll remember them in time. Overworking yourself isn't going to help anything."

"I...I know." Cross shook her head. "I've been bad about that haven't I?"

"I've gotten the impression that you're used to knowing what to do, and how to do it. You're used to being the kind of person others rely on. But that isn't working here, and you need to rely on others instead, and it's been so long since you've done that you're not sure how to."

"Maybe. That sounds like it could be right. I always did want to be a hero. And part of being a hero is that others can rely on you yeah? Maybe I took that to far and forgot that not even a hero can do things on there own."

Elma looked at Cross funnily. Whatever thoughts were going through the older womans head where indecipherable to her. Though, it almost looked like she was remembering something? "Yes. The worst thing a hero can do is forget to rely on others. It gets them killed. Anyway… I don't think it's worth fretting about not recognizing anything from NLA. I've….got a theory as to why you can't."

"Oh?" Cross said, unsure of what to make of that statement.

Elma took in a deep breath. "I didn't want to say anything, as there is absolutely no proof to back up this idea."

Cross, now having absolutely no idea what to say, just sat there as Elma paused.

"In short, I think you might be from another colony ship. No one seems to know who you are, you aren't in the records of the ship's passengers, you don't recognize a city you should have spent years in, and you've got a bit of an accent on you. That last one doesn't really mean much of course, with how much people moved around during Earth's last years, but it fits the rest."

"I'm...from another ship?" Cross was bewildered. "How is that possible?"

Elma shrugged. "We don't know for sure how many, if any at all, of the other ships made it safely off Earth. I'd like to think we aren't the only ones who made it. If you were referring to how we should know if there was another colony ship nearby, well, we were shot down. Another ship could have come along in the months since then, perhaps run afoul of something dangerous in the vastness of space, or even in this very system, it's certainly bizarre enough to throw off any pilot. There very well could be another colony ship crashed somewhere else on this planet. We do know there are smatterings of other continents across the world, so it might be on one of those."

"Wouldn't we have heard a radio signal or something from them?"

"Possibly, but if they don't know anyone else is here on this planet they'd have no reason to bother." Elma looked down. "Also, there is a very real possibility that this hypothetical other ship didn't have a safe landing. We barely managed to keep the city intact on ours."

Cross paled. "So….they might all be dead. I don't know how much I like this idea anymore. I think I'd rather not know where I'm from than more people be dead."

"It's only a possibility. The main thing is don't beat yourself up over why you don't recognize anything. It's not going to help."

"Yeah." Cross grinned, just a little, and stood up. "Thanks. I needed that. A good talk to get my out of my funk. Thanks Elma."

"Any time. I'm always happy to help."

"Want to go get some food?"

Elma shook her head. "I've eaten. Why don't you go out and make some friends? It would do you good to know more people than just myself, Lin, and Irina's team."

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll see you around Elma." Cross waved as she turned around to go to head back to the ladder.

Elma gazed out over the city. From up here it looked so small and fragile. Not wanting to go any further along that line of thought, she tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. Hopefully Cross would be alright. She really should have noticed something was wrong with the young woman earlier, but she'd been so busy over the last week she'd barely even see her.

Elma sighed. Speaking of, she had more work to do. Discussion over the results of the raid on the Prone base. She stood up, then turned around as a small crystalline tinkle sounded on the ground behind her. The follow ball lay on the ground by her feat. "Oh. I never did return this to Cross" she said as she scooped it up. The glowing core tingled a bit, and there was the faintest of breezes as the hexagonal panels drifted around her hand.

She glared at it. For all Cross seemed enamoured with the device, she couldn't bring herself to trust it. That's what thousands of years of cultural suspicion of ether usage beyond the basics did she supposed. At least it seemed useful. "If only you could help Cross figure out where she's from." Elma muttered.

To her surprise, the spheres glow brightened a little. It rose to her hand, hesitated, then slowly drifted off in the direction of the barracks. "Well, I guess it's not wrong." she chuckled, but in the back of her mind, she couldn't shake the feeling that while it was wavering in the air, before it had east-south-east the barracks, it had, for the briefest of moments, seemed to very deliberately start going north-west instead


End file.
